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Outlook: Book lovers unite: The bookish boy who became a boxing champion

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Michael Bentt

30/06/2022 GMT

Book lovers unite: The bookish boy who became a boxing champion

BBC World Service - Outlook, Book lovers unite: The bookish boy who became a boxing champion

The bookish boxing champion, the bin man who built a library and the secret German author

The heavyweight champion who would rather read than box. The bin man from Bogota who built a library from unwanted stories and the secret German horror author.

Boxer Michael Bentt never wanted to fight, he'd always rather read, but he managed to climb to the top of his profession. He became the heavyweight champion of the world in 1993. And that was just the beginning of his remarkable journey. Michael was inducted into the New York State Boxing Hall of fame last month. He spoke to Neal Razzell in 2019.

Jose Alberto Gutierrez is a rubbish collector from Colombia who has a rather interesting collection of books. He's rescued thirty thousand of them from the trash cans of Bogota and he's created a special library for the local children. Dimitri O'Donnell went meet Jose and some of his customers in 2017.

Best-selling German author Helmut Rellergerd has written several crime novels about his most famous creation, British detective John Sinclair – but has never been to London, where the stories are all set. Reporter Amy Zayed met Helmut in 2020 to explore the cult around the author who for years didn’t reveal his real identity.

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar

(Photo: Michael Bentt with Tommy Morrison. Credit: Mark Morrison/Getty Images)

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