Anna Whitwham's Soft Tissue Damage goes to Rough Trade Books

Rough Trade Books has nabbed Anna Whitwham’s "complicated, knotty, visceral" Soft Tissue Damage.

Publisher Nina Hervé bought world rights from Sophie Lambert at C&W Agency, and the book will be edited by Will Burns and published in the UK on 27th March 2025.

The synopsis states: "Soft Tissue Damage tells the story of author Anna Whitwham’s lifelong interest in boxing, manifesting itself in the physical act of getting into the ring to fight. From her first tentative training sessions through to bruising sparring sessions that build up to a full-blooded fight, Whitwham charts the transformative impact the sport – and all its complicated implications – has on her during a profoundly difficult period dealing with the grief of losing her mother to cancer."

Burns said: “From the moment we first heard about Anna Whitwham’s Soft Tissue Damage, we knew we wanted to publish it and reading it for the first time only deepened our excitement. This is a book that is as complicated, knotty, visceral, heart-breaking and exhilarating as life itself, taking Anna’s lifelong interest and eventual immersion in boxing as a jumping off point for examinations of almost every aspect of our bodily lives – sex, motherhood, violence and, most touchingly, death."

Whitwham added: “Rough Trade Books has allowed me the space to examine the female body and its desires – its capability for sex and violence – to explore what it can and can’t stand. I negotiate all of this in the boxing ring as I recall the way my mum’s cancer broke her body down. This book is about pain, but also about hope and joy too. And love."