by Robert Lipsyte

Robert Lipsyte began his writing career as a copy boy on the New York Times sports section at age nineteen. After working several years for the Times, Lipsyte earned the privilege of writing his own sports column for the paper in 1967. The inspiration for his first novel came from his coverage of the heavyweight boxing title fight between Muhammad Ali and Floyd Patterson in Las Vegas in 1965. During the fight, Cus D'Amato, an aging boxing manager, told Lipsyte stories about his gym on New York's Lower East Side. As soon as he returned to New York, Lipsyte began building on the conversation with D'Amato to write The Contender, which would become a major stepping stone in Lipsyte's career as a young-adult novelist.

Events in History at the Time of the Novel

Growing up in Harlem. By World War I, the black population of...