When her mother died of cancer, Anna Whitwham, a writer and academic, needed a release. Returning to her family’s East End roots, she joined a boxing gym and started training for a fight. Anna will be talking about her resulting memoir Soft Tissue Damage to writer Davina Quinlivan. The event will be held in a working boxing gym.

Davina Quinlivan is a Devon-based/London-bred author and academic. Her books include Shalimar: A Story of Place and Migration and Possessions - an examination of academia, the literary world, and her Burmese identity. She is currently writing her third memoir, Labyrinthine.

Praise for Soft Tissue Damage

'An astounding book, moving between shadow and light with an honesty and self-awareness I found completely compelling.' Jessie Burton (author of The Miniaturist)


'Anna Whitwham's Soft Tissue Damage is a compelling, visceral and tender book about grief and loss, life and death, identity and sexuality, written by a daughter, a mother and an aspiring fighter.' Donald McRae (author of The Last Bell: Life, Death and Boxing)

‘Soft Tissue Damage places Whitwham firmly in the tradition of Joyce Carol Oates, Norman Mailer and other novelists who have evoked the blood and spit of the world’s most brutal and beautiful sport.’ Sam Parker, British GQ,best books of 2025

Anna Whitwham’s first novel, Boxing handsome, was inspired by her grandfather, a featherweight boxer in Hoxton.