Climb inside the ring with a world-champion boxer for a behind-the-scenes look at Muhammad Ali Writers have long been attracted to boxing. Hemingway, Mailer, Algren, Plimpton, Oates, and many others have stepped into the ring--at least in spirit--to give voice to an otherwise wordless sport, to celebrate that “sweet science,” and to bear witness to its romance and tragedy. In Sting Like a Bee, hailed by Norman Mailer as an “impressive event,” we are brought for the first time into the ring for a close-up look at the “manly art” through the eyes of Jose Torres, a man who was a great boxer himself. When former light-heavyweight world champion Jose Torres traded in his gloves for a typewriter, boxing finally found its eyewitness. In this classic book, Torres turns his well-trained eye on one of the most celebrated and controversial athletes of all time: Muhammad Ali. In this penetrating view of Ali and the world of prizefighting, told by a true insider and “boxing’s Renaissance man,” Torres delivers exciting and explicit accounts of all of Ali’s major fights with the cool authenticity of one who has lived it.

A silver medalist in the 1956 Olympics, Jose Torres went on to have a brilliant professional boxing career, becoming light-heavyweight champion of the world in 1965. After his fighting days ended, Torres became a columnist for the New York Post and associate editor of Boxing Illustrated magazine. From 1983 to 1988 he served as chairman of the New York State Boxing Commission. He publishes regularly in Parade, the New York Post, El Diario, and the Village Voice and is the author of Fire and Fear: The Inside Story of Mike Tyson. He lives in New York City.

“. . . Acrid, penetrating, a book fuming with the ammonia of the prize ring and the psychic steam of champions." -- Publishers Weekly

“Marvelous . . . it is a study of the psychic contest that in boxing is the hidden part of the iceberg.” -- The New York Times