'Remarkable ... nimble lyrical and wispy' Sunday Times'An utterly riveting frequently moving
and staggeringly well-written book' Daily Mail'Breathtaking'
Guardian________________________This novel opens on a battlefield: trudging back from the front
through a ravaged and icy wasteland their horses dying around them their own hunger rendering
them almost savage the Russian soldiers are exhausted as they reach the city of Ufa desperate
for food and shelter.They find both and then music and dance. And there spinning unafraid
among them dancing for the soldiers and anyone else who'll watch him is one small pale boy
Rudolf. This is Colum McCann's dancer: Rudolf a prodigy at six years old who became the
greatest dancer of the century who redefined dance rewrote his own life and died of AIDS
before anyone knew he had it. This is an extraordinary life transformed into extraordinary
fiction by one of the most acclaimed writers of his generation. One kind of masculine grace is
perfectly matched to another in Colum McCann's beautiful and daring new novel.
