Norman Mailer was born in 1923 and went to Harvard when he was sixteen. He majored in engineering, but it was while he was at university that he became interested in writing; he published his first story when he was eighteen. After graduating he served during the war in the Philippines with the Twelfth Armoured Cavalry regiment from Texas; those were the years that formed The Naked and the Dead (1948). His other books include Barbary Shore (1951), The Deer Park (1955), Advertisements for Myself (1959), Deaths for the Ladies, a volume of poetry (1962), The Presidential Papers (1963), An American Dream (1964), Why Are We in Vietnam? (1967), The Armies of the Night (1968), Miami and the Siege of Chicago (1968), A Fire on the Moon (1970), The Prisoner of Sex (1971), Marilyn (1973), Some Honourable Men (1976), Genius and Lust - A Journey Through the Writings of Henry Miller (1976), A Transit to Narcissus (1978), The Executioner's Song (1979) and Tough Guys Don't Dance (1983). The Deer Park has been adapted into a play and was successfully profuced off Broadway. He also directed four films. The Fight is a 1975 non-fiction book by Norman Mailer about the boxing title fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman at Kinshasa in Zaire in 1974, known as the " Rumble in the Jungle". In primo luogo l'ego smisurato di Mailer riscontrato in altri romanzi qui si fa piccolo piccolo, quasi prostrato all'ombra del gigante di Louisville: è evidente il fascino che Alì esercita sullo scrittore, e non si tratta solo di una suggestione sportiva.

Michael Wood (July 27, 1975). "Muhammad Ali versus George Foreman via Norman Mailer". The New York Times . Retrieved March 4, 2015. The 1974 'Rumble in the Jungle' boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman is so iconic and rightly famous – as both cultural spectacle and an example of sporting skill – that it becomes hard, as a reviewer of Mailer's The Fight, to determine how much of one's enjoyment comes from the book itself and how much from the event it recreates. On arriving in Kinshasa and meeting the two fighters, the author sees Foreman as a formidable threat to Muhammad Ali, believing Muhammad could be seriously injured. He sees Muhammad training and becomes convinced that Muhammad is not at his best and unlikely to win the fight. Though he could never devote much time to the sport, Mailer loved baseball. But despite numerous references to the game in his work, he never wrote a long baseball piece. "You write like a dull whore with an honest streak, but if you ain’t afraid of a grand slam, come around when you get to New York, and we’ll have a drink or two.”Oι γυμνοί και οι νεκροί", "Ένα Αμερικάνικο όνειρο", "Οι στρατιές της νύχτας", "Μαίριλυν", "The Executioner's Song" (δυστυχώς αμετάφραστο στα ελληνικά), είναι μερικά από τα γνωστότερα και πιο πολυσυζητημένα έργα του. The book is as much on the Foreman-Ali fight as it is on race relations, Norman Mailer himself and the press. If you like Muhammad Ali, are interested in his relation with both the press and his entourage, and are keen to read a high paced eye-witness report to Mobutu's Kinshasa, this is the book for you. Norman Mailer, “The Millionaire,” The Fight: Norman Mailer, by Norman Mailer, Vintage International, 1997, 38

Norman Mailer, “The Man in the Rigging,” The Fight: Norman Mailer, by Norman Mailer, Vintage International, 1997, 197 Nonetheless, Norman was certainly feeling modest on his return to New York and thought he might as well use his first name — everybody in the fight game did. Indeed, his head was so determinedly empty that the alternative was to do a piece without a name. Never had his wisdom appeared more invisible to him and that is a fair condition for acquiring an anonymous voice.” No fighter, no American athlete, would ever be so connected with a writer as Ali would be with Mailer. But the champ no one wanted, Sonny Liston, had a special place in Mailer’s esteem, too. Mailer recalled to me that on the night he disrupted Liston’s press conference, “Sonny himself wasn’t as offended as the newspapermen. I told him I didn’t like it that he called me a bum. He laughed and said, ‘Hey, you can call me a bum. Hell, I’m a bigger bum than you because I’m bigger than you,’” he told me. Oddly enough, Plimpton's own book 'Paper Lion', his 1966 book about his attempt as an average, non-athlete to make it through an NFL training camp with the Detroit Lions is a fine example of how to insert yourself repeatedly into a non-fiction book on sports without coming across as self-indulgently as Mailer so often does here. At least George got on the field. And he writes more charmingly about his adventures in a book where his centrality to the story is the entire point, than Norman does as he keeps inserting himself into 'the Fight'.

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Yes, he told me, he was. And what he objected to was that Liebling did not mention him by name. “I was irked that he did not use my name because the story of my dialogue with Liston had appeared in many a New York newspaper. … It’s the most effective form of reportorial bum-rapping.” Throughout the book, Mailer emphasizes the artistic and aesthetic aspects of boxing. He discusses the beauty and brutality of the sport, likening it to a dance of violence. Mailer’s unique perspective as a writer and boxing enthusiast shines through as he analyzes the technical nuances and poetry of boxing. We weten immers steeds dat dat grote gevecht eraan zit te komen – en zelfs als je weet hoe het afloopt, of als je zoals ik de prachtdocumentaire When We Were Kings (1996) over ditzelfde gevecht hebt gezien, zijn die gevechtsscènes heel sterk geschreven. Tientallen bladzijden lang gaat Mailer in op het geknok, hij beschrijft elke vuistslag, ieder samentrekking van Foremans of Ali’s spieren, en vooral beschrijft hij hoezeer boksen ook een mentale sport is. Ali die zowel de underdog als branieschoppende uitdager is; Foreman de grote, schijnbaar onverslaanbare favoriet. En hun onderlinge rolverdeling en hiërarchie, die zelfs tijdens het gevecht steeds verspringt.

Released in 1975, The Fight follows the legendary fight between Muhammed Ali and George Foreman – two names that are synonymous with boxing, even today. Set in the country of Zaire (now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo), Norman Mailer turns the upcoming boxing match into a mystical dream – complete with little known religions (Mobutism), a dark and seamy country and two of the most famous and well-paid athletes in the world.Sometimes, though, even champs get treated like bums. In 1982, Mailer told me how it happened to him. Mailer loved football, too, and let it slip on several occasions that he had played on the intramural team at Harvard. Another of Mailer’s favorite sports was bullfighting, though he never really developed his own style when writing about it. It’s hard not to imagine that he took up with it in the hopes that Hemingway would see what he had written and send him a fan letter. The new heavyweight champion, smiling as radiantly as anyone had ever seen him, advised the heavyweight champion of American writers, “Don’t be a sorehead.”