About this item
A once-famous ballerina faces a final choice - to return to the world of Russian dance that nearly broke her, or to walk away forever - in this incandescent novel of redemption and loveOn a White Night in 2019, prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg two years after a devastating accident stalled her career. Once the most celebrated dancer of her generation, she now turns to pills and alcohol to numb the pain of her past.She is unmoored in her old city as the ghosts of her former life begin to resurface: her loving but difficult mother, her absentee father, and the two gifted dancers who led to her downfall.One of those dancers, Alexander, is the love of her life, who transformed both Natalia and her art. The other is Dmitri, a dark and treacherous genius.
About the Author
Juhea Kim was born in Incheon, Korea, and moved to Portland, Oregon, at age nine. She graduated from Princeton University with a degree in Art and Archaeology and a certificate in French. Her bestselling debut novel, Beasts of a Little Land, was named a finalist for the 2022 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, as well as a Best Book of 2021 by Real Simple, Harper's Bazaar, Ms. , and Portland Monthly. It will be published around the world in 2022. Her writing has been published in Granta, Slice, Zyzzyva, Catapult, Guernica, Shenandoah, Times Literary Supplement, Joyland, Sierra Magazine, The Independent, Portland Monthly, The Massachusetts Review, and Dispatches from Annares anthology, among others. Her translation of Yi Sang Award-winning author Choi In-Ho was published in Granta. She is the founder and editor of , an online magazine covering sustainable lifestyle and ecological literature. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, Regional Arts & Culture Council, and Arizona State University, where she taught a class on ecological fiction as a 2020 Desert Nights Rising Stars Fellow. She is represented by Jody Kahn at Brandt & Hochman Literary Agency and United Talent Agency (film/TV) . In addition to writing fiction, Juhea also works with essays and narrative journalism focusing on the environment. She is donating a portion of the proceeds of Beasts of a Little Land to the Phoenix Fund, a Vladivostok-based conservation nonprofit working to protect the Siberian tiger and the Amur leopard. She lives in Portland, Oregon. Follow Juhea on Instagram Profile photo Bitna Chung
