“I learned a lot from this well-researched, briskly narrated biography about many aspects of Nureyev` s life that had always confused me. Here are the fascinating details needed about the dancer` s Tatar and Muslim family background, about the exact scenario of his defection at the Paris airport in 1961, about his astoundingly successful collaboration with Margot Fonteyn. The story of Nureyev` s love affair and lifelong friendship with the Danish dancer Erik Bruhn is sensitively told. And Nureyev` s protracted final battle with AIDS is recounted in such a way as to show the man` s titanic strength and insufferable arrogance. The great Russian dancer emerges from this volume, willful grandeur.”
Edmund White