| Battling
Siki
A Tale of Ring Fixes, Race, and Murder in the 1920s
Peter Benson
First biography of the controversial
and misunderstood African boxer,
now in paper
“No man ever came out of Africa who had a more dramatic
life or had a more tragic ending.”
—Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, at Siki’s funeral
“That extraordinary Sengalese.”
—Henry Miller, from Plexus
“Ever since colonialism has existed, the Whites have
been paid to bash in the faces of the Blacks. For once a Black
has been paid to do the same thing to a White.”
—Ho Chi Minh, from “About Siki”
“One of the most comprehensive and intriguing boxing
biographies in recent memory, and deserves high marks for
refurbishing the image of a worthwhile and worthy champion.”
—Peter Ehrmann, The Ring
“Impressive.”
—Pat Myler, Evening Herald (Dublin)
“Has all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy set
in the Roaring Twenties.”
—Thomas Hauser, author of Muhammad Ali: His Life and
Times
“A tremendous book and useful to understanding race,
sports, and crime in the 1920s.”
—Sport History Review
Battling Siki (1887–1925) was once one of the four or
five most recognizable black men in the world and was written
about by a host of great writers, including George Bernard
Shaw, Ring Lardner, Damon Runyon, Janet Flanner, and Ernest
Hemingway. Peter Benson’s lively biography of the first
African to win a world championship in boxing delves into
the complex world of sports, race, colonialism, and the cult
of personality in the early twentieth century.
Peter Benson is professor of English at Fairleigh
Dickinson University, the author of Black Orpheus,
Transition, and Modern Cultural Awakening in
Africa, and an avid boxing fan.
Original
cloth edition.
July
6 x 9, 360 pages, 15 photographs, index
$19.95 paper
ISBN 978-1-55728-888-2 | 1-55728-888-7
$32.50
(s) Cloth
ISBN 978-1-55728-816-5 | 1-55728-816-X
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