num_pages: 336
description: Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his provincial town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan street hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.
language: English
title: Dancer
titlecomplete: Dancer
genres: LGBT, Historical, Ireland, Irish Literature, Russia, Novels, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fiction, Queer
ratings_count: 5007
places: Ufa, St. Petersburg, Paris
awards: awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Bord Gáis Energy Irish Book Award
category: Hughes & Hughes Irish Novel of the Year
publisher: Picador