Past Event

Launch of The Fighter by Arnold Zable

2nd May 2016

Presenter: Text Publishing Company
Website: https://www.textpublishing.com.au/
Event Duration: 120 minutes

On this very special night, Tony Birch will launch Arnold Zable's latest work, The Fighter, with a performance by Kavisha Mazzella and an appearance from Father Bob Maguire.

The Fighter

1950s, working-class Carlton.

A young boy—skinny, wide-eyed and unlikely—knocks on the door of an ex-boxer. And a backyard gym becomes the training ground of a champion fighter.

The boy from Amess Street worked his way up to beat some of the world’s best—to find dignity in the brutality of the boxing ring. And to find a world outside the confines of a home where the dark shadow of a tragic past was ever-present.

Now, he’s on the docks, loading and unloading, taking shifts as they come up. Always keen to relive the glorious wins and the camaraderie of the boxing fraternity. But never far from the memory of another fighter, his mother—and her devastating decline into madness.

Observed with a novelist’s eye, The Fighter is a perceptive and lyrical account of the life of Henry Nissen — a moving and poetic portrait of a compassionate man and the forces that shaped him.

About the Author

Arnold Zable is a highly acclaimed novelist, storyteller, educator and human rights advocate. Formerly a lecturer in the Arts Faculty in Melbourne University, Zable has worked in the USA, Papua New Guinea, China, and many parts of Europe and Asia.
Zable is a patron of Sanctuary, the Eastweb Foundation and the Victorian Storytellers Guild, a former member of the Immigration Museum Advisory Committee, and former President of International PEN Melbourne. He has conducted writing workshops throughout Australia, and worked with refugees, immigrants, the homeless, the profoundly deaf, Black Saturday bushfire survivors, problem gamblers and other groups, using writing as a means of self-understanding and healing.
Arnold Zable’s books include Jewels and Ashes, The Fig Tree, Café Scheherazade, Scraps of Heaven, Sea of Many Returns and Violin Lessons. He lives in Melbourne.