Rudolf Nureyev: The Life - Softcover

Kavanagh, Julie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141029692 ISBN 13: 9780141029696

Publisher: Penguin, 2008

Synopsis

Born on a train in Stalin’s Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet’s first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement – both on and off stage.

Nureyev’s achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov’s thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor’s wife; defected to the West in l961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; gave his rabid sexuality full reign; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia’s unknown ballet masterpieces in the West.

Julie Kavanagh’s uncompromising and magnificent biography, ten years in the making, is a brilliant tribute to a superstar the world can never forget.

About this title

Review:

Magnificent, compulsively readable (Guardian)

A gripping account of an extraordinary life (Daily Telegraph)

Magnificent, a triumph. Captures every facet of this extraordinary man (Mail on Sunday)

Undoubtedly the definitive biography. Rudolf Nureyev, superstar, emerges in all his terribly flawed glory (Sunday Telegraph)

The definitive study of a man who, in his combination of aesthetic grace and psychological grime, can truly be called a sacred monster (Observer)

Julie Kavanagh writes with flair and abundance (The Sunday Times)

The definitive biography, a gripping account of an extraordinary life (Lynn Barber Telegraph)

She writes with flair and abundance (The Sunday Times)

Undoubtedly the definitive biography. Rudolf Nureyev, superstar, emerges in all his terribly flawed glory (Sunday Telegraph)

From the Back Cover:

`The book's subtitle deserves its definite article: this is the definitive study of [Nureyev]' Observer

`The definitive biography, a gripping account of an extraordinary life' Lynn Barber, Telegraph

`A meticulously researched and judiciously argued study which, as a record of Nureyev's career, will surely never be bettered' Daily Mail

`Undoubtedly the definitive biography. Rudolf Nureyev, superstar, emerges in all his terribly flawed glory' Sunday Telegraph

`Engrossing...Kavanagh writes with authority, clarity and eloquence' Financial Times

`Magnificent...captures every facet of this extraordinary man...a profoundly moving account' Mail on Sunday

`Kavanagh is the ideal biographer for Rudolf Nureyev' Literary Review

'Magnificent...comprehensive and compulsively readable' Simon Callow, Guardian

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 0141029692
• ISBN 13: 9780141029696
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 848