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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 love.
On a White Night in 2019, prima ballerina Natalia Leonova returns to St. Petersburg two years after a devastating accident that 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. When the latter offers her a chance to return to the stage in her signature role, Natalia must decide whether she can again face the people responsible for both her soaring highs and darkest hours.
Painting a vivid portrait of the Russian ballet world, where cutthroat ambition, ever-shifting politics, and sublime artistry collide, City of Night Birds unveils the making of a dancer with both profound intimacy and breathtaking scope. Mysterious and alluring, passionate and virtuosic, Juhea Kim's second novel is an affecting meditation on love, forgiveness, and the making of an artist in a turbulent world.
"Riveting ... . Kim weaves in plot threads involving the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the tabloid press, and celebrity parties, as well as complications related to various expressions of sexual desire to show that no form of art can exist separately from the complexity of life ... . Another brilliant page-turner from Kim ... .Written in sumptuous prose, Kim's novel is a feast for the senses." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[S]ome of the transitions between past and present can be confusing, but Kim offers an illuminating look into the backstage life of a ballerina and her dedication to her art. This will land with readers." —Publishers Weekly
"Shimmering, seductive characters dance across the pages of City of Night Birds, immersing you in the world of a prima ballerina fulfilling her most beautiful and terrible ambitions. In this absorbing and passionate novel, Juhea Kim writes with fierce emotional intelligence about the darkness and desire that drive art and love, asking, What does it take to live a life beyond your wildest dreams?" —Meng Jin, author of Self-Portrait with Ghost and Little Gods
"An ecstatic künstlerroman—meticulously researched, brutally frank, and deliciously glamorous, City of Night Birds enraptures as thoroughly as the ballerina at its beating heart. The artistry possessed by this novel's sublimely gifted heroine is rivaled only by that of her author. Brava, Juhea Kim!" —Rachel Lyon, author of Fruit of the Dead and Self-Portrait with Boy
"A beautifully crafted must read. City of Night Birds is a book that lingers long after the final pages have come and gone." —Jason Mott, National Book Award-winning author of Hell of a Book
This information about City of Night Birds was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Nola Logan
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 debut novel is Beasts of a Little Land
Her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Granta, Slice, Zyzzyva, Catapult, Times Literary Supplement, Joyland, Shenandoah, Guernica, Sierra Magazine, The Independent, Portland Monthly, and Dispatches from Annares anthology (Oct 2021, Forest Avenue Press). Her translation of Yi Sang Award-winning author Choi In-Ho was published in Granta. She is the founder and editor of Peaceful Dumpling, an online magazine covering sustainable lifestyle and ecological literature. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Environmental Writers' Conference, Regional...
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