The Sailor and the Fox

by Brian Burland

hardcover with white dust jacket

141 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1973

Reviews

[Yesha · Rating 4 out of 5]

loved. it moved like a boxing match. swift and beautifully.

[Tsehay · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is too bad Brian Burland's books are no longer in print. This was a short read but the entire story was as tense and punchy as the boxing fight itself. I loved reading about old school Bermuda and it's people.

I managed to find a 1973 paperback edition online.

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[Jenita Dyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspired to read this as it was written by a Bermudian. Boxing is not a subject I would have read on but the author made it very interesting

[Simon Mckernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books ever written

[Alexander Winzfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

Burland's masterpiece, probably; it's certainly the book I'd recommend to friends under the auspices of 'if you could only read ONE". Somehow both viscerally realist and dizzyingly hallucinatory, The Sailor and the Fox describes the inner lives of two boxers, one black and the other white, in the midst of a politically and racially charged match in segregated 50s Bermuda. As punches land and sweat mixes with blood, each boxer's thoughts drift and muse, and consider the choices, both their own and those fostered upon them by society at large, that lead them to this brutal confrontation. A nigh-experimental work of fiction that still manages to enthrall, while also giving a rare glimpse of the Bermuda behind the pastel postcards, The Sailor and the Fox is Burland at his peak.