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“Heartbreak and betrayal are beautifully woven between past and present in this riveting novel of a Russian ballerina. Kim clearly knows the inside scoop and behind the scenes of life as a dancer and her writing soars. Shows how life and art are intertwined. BRAVO”
— Karin • Bookworm of Edwards
Bookseller recommendation
“Heartbreak and betrayal are beautifully woven between past and present in this riveting novel of a Russian ballerina. Kim clearly knows the inside scoop and behind the scenes of life as a dancer and her writing soars. Shows how life and art are intertwined. BRAVO”
— Karin • Bookworm of Edwards
REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK
""This story left me thinking about the ways we overcome setbacks and redefine what truly matters."" - Reese Witherspoon (Reese’s Book Club December '24 Pick)
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.
Juhea Kim is the author of the novel Beasts of a Little Land, which was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and winner of the Yasnaya Polyana Literary Award, Russia’s largest annual prize in literature. Beasts of a Little Land has been published around the world and is being adapted into a TV series. Kim is a graduate of Princeton University. Her writing has been published in Granta, the Times Literary Supplement, the Independent, Zyzzyva, Guernica, and other outlets. Born in Korea and raised in Portland, Oregon, Kim now lives in London.