Marina Harss

In this modern classic from the renowned Italian author, an aspiring writer's career and marriage threaten to come undone against the heady backdrop of 1930s Tuscany. To begin with I'd like to talk about my wife. To love means, in addition to many other things, to delight in gazing upon and observing the beloved. When Silvio, a rich Italian dilettante, and his beautiful wife agree to move to the country and forgo sex so that he will have the energy to write a successful novel, something is bound to go wrong: Silvio's literary ambitions are far too big for his second-rate talent, and his wife Leda is a passionate woman. This dangerously combustible situation explodes when Leda accuses Antonio, the local barber who comes every morning to shave Silvio, of trying to molest her. Silvio obstinately refuses to dismiss him, and the quarrel and its shattering consequences put the couple's love to the test.

Alexei Ratmansky is transforming ballet for the twenty-first century. An artist of daring imagination, the choreographer has created breathtakingly original works for the world’s most revered companies. He has fashioned a singular approach to balletic storytelling that bridges the space between narrative and abstraction and heightens ambiguity and surprise on the stage. He has boldly restored great centuries-old ballets to their former glory, combining archival research with his own choreographic genius to retrieve detail and colour once lost to the ages. And above all, he is renowned for fusing the Western and Eastern ballet traditions, and for drawing on the visual arts, literature, music, film, and beyond with inspired vim, to forge a style that is vibrant, eclectic, and utterly new: one that promises to leave an indelible mark on this venerable art form. But before Ratmansky was the artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, the resident choreographer at American Ballet Theatre, the artist in residence at New York City Ballet, and generally, as The New Yorker has it, “the most sought-after man in ballet,” he was just a boy from Kyiv, sneaking into the ballet at night, concocting his own juvenile adaptations of novels and stories, and dreaming up new possibilities for bodies in motion. In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this groundbreaking artist, the celebrated dance writer Marina Harss takes us behind the curtain to reveal Ratmansky’s fascinating life, from his Soviet boyhood through his globe-spanning career. Over a decade in the making, this biography arrives at a pivotal moment in Ratmansky’s journey, one that has seen him painfully and publicly break ties with Russia, the country in which he made his name, in solidarity with his native Ukraine, and take on a new challenge at the storied New York City Ballet. Told with the lyricism, drama, and verve that befit its subject, The Boy from Kyiv is a riveting account of this major artist’s ascent to the peaks of his field, a mesmerising study of creativity in action, and a triumphant testament to ballet’s enduring vitality.

Alexei Ratmansky is “the most sought-after man in ballet” (The New Yorker). A former artistic director at the Bolshoi Ballet and the resident choreographer at American Ballet Theatre, and now the incoming artist in residence at New York City Ballet, Ratmansky has created magnificent works for the world’s most revered ballet companies, breathing exquisite new life into this age-old art. In The Boy from Kyiv, the first biography of this major artist, the celebrated dance critic Marina Harss recounts the exceptional life that has made Ratmansky the most respected choreographer at work today. An artist of singular vision, he is renowned above all for radically revitalising the craft of storytelling in ballet, and for daringly restaging great nineteenth-century ballets lost to time. And of late, the Ukrainian-Russian choreographer has found himself in an unexpected new role as perhaps the most vocal critic of Vladimir Putin in the quintessentially Russian ballet world. Ratmansky has vowed never to work there again so long as Putin remains in power, and much of his recent work has championed the cause of the Ukrainian people. Harss has spent the better part of two decades following Ratmansky’s illustrious and still ascending career. With The Boy from Kyiv, she delivers a riveting, deeply personal account of this miraculous rise to the peaks of artistic excellence.