Rudolf Nureyev: The Life

Author(s): Julie Kavanagh

Biography / Memoir

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.


Product Information

Commended for Samuel Johnson Prize 2008. Shortlisted for Whitbread Book Awards: Biography Category 2007 and Theatre Book Prize 2007.

Julie Kavanagh trained as a dancer at the Royal Ballet School, and is the author of Secret Muses: The Life of Frederick Ashton. She has worked as ballet critic of The Spectator; Arts Editor of Harpers & Queen; and London Editor of Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She is married to the ex-Royal Ballet dancer, now dance film maker, Ross MacGibbon, and has two sons.

General Fields

  • : 9780141029696
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
  • : Penguin Books, Limited
  • : 0.622
  • : June 2008
  • : 204mm X 129mm X 37mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : 3 x 16 page insets b&w photos
  • : Biography & autobiography: film, television, music, theatre; Ballet
  • : 787
  • : 792.8028092
  • : English
  • : 1
  • : Paperback
  • : Julie Kavanagh