Ghosts of Manila

Description

An account of the dual lives of Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and the long-running feud between them. Be prepared to have your previously held opinions challenged, then shattered, by this thought-provoking study. This title gives a dramatic insight into the 30-year feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. American sports journalist Mark Kram has spent nearly the same amount of time preparing to write this book - and the result is a piece of research and social history. When Ali and Frazier met in Manila for the third act of their trilogy of fights, their rivalry had spun out of control. More than a clash of personalities and fighting styles, the rivalry, inflamed by the media, took on overtones of politics and race. But in the aftermath of Manila the hype no longer mattered: one man was left with a ruin of a life; the other was battered to his soul. Frazier is now in an advanced state of blindness, still consumed by hate; Ali's once agile and powerful body is withered by the grip of Parkinson's disease. The book begins with the boxers themselves - who they are and were. They began as friends, with a genuine, if grudging, respect for each other. They were turned into enemies as much by pride as forces over which they had no control. Weaving together past and present, Kram explodes the hagiography surrounding both fighters, particularly Ali, and presents the reader with the rarest of literary achievements: a psychological study of two heroes, complete with the myths and the reality behind it all.

Mark Kram, Jr. is the author of Like Any Normal Day: A Story of Devotion, which was awarded the 2013 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. Kram's work has appeared in The Best American Sports Writing and he received the 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Award for feature writing. He is a former senior writer for the Philadelphia Daily News, and he has also worked at the Detroit Free Press, Baltimore News American, Philadelphia Magazine, and contributed to The New York Times. He is the son of the late Mark Kram, a highly regarded writer for Sports Illustrated and the author of a controversial book on the rivalry between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, Ghosts of Manila.

'The best boxing book I've ever read' Tony Parsons 'A marvellous revisionist tale of the Ali legend' Sunday Times