Sellers Susan Bücher

Eine Liebesgeschichte in drei Akten: Lydia Lopokova und John Maynard Keynes – zwei der brillantesten und ungewöhnlichsten Figuren des 20. Jahrhunderts. Winter 1921, die Bohème von Bloomsbury wird aufgemischt, denn die Ballets Russes bringen eine extravagante neue Produktion auf die Bühne des Londoner Alhambra Theaters – mit der extrovertierten russischen Tänzerin Lydia Lopokova in der Hauptrolle. Im Publikum: John Maynard Keynes, der angesehene Ökonom, obwohl er sich wenig von dem Abend verspricht. Denn trotz Lydias zahlreicher Triumphe, darunter die Titelrolle in Strawinskys »Feuervogel«, hält Maynard sie für eine »miserable Tänzerin«. An diesem Abend jedoch ist er von ihrer Darbietung gerührt, und der Mann, der bislang ausschließlich homosexuelle Liaisons hatte, verliebt sich unsterblich in die Primaballerina. Ihre unwahrscheinliche Affäre, dann ihre unerwartete Heirat in London im Jahr 1925, die ganz England erstaunt und bewegt, wird zur überraschendsten Liebesgeschichte ihrer Zeit.

"This richly imagined novel tells the surprising story of two of Bloomsbury's most unlikely lovers--John Maynard Keynes, the distinguished economist, and the extrovert Russian dancer Lydia Lopokova. Firebird is the third novel of prize-winning author Susan Sellers, who is also an expert on Bloomsbury and the writing of Virginia Woolf. Weaving biography and fiction, Firebird explores the tangle of Bloomsbury's bohemian relationships as lifestyles are challenged and allegiances shift following Lydia's explosive arrival. It is the winter of 1921 and Diaghilev's Ballets Russes launch a flamboyant new production at London's Alhambra Theatre. Maynard Keynes is in the audience, though he expects little from the evening. Despite Lydia's many triumphs, including the title role in Stravinsky's Firebird, Maynard's mind is made up--he considers her 'a rotten dancer'. Besides, Lydia has at least one husband in tow and Maynard has only ever loved men. Tonight, however, he is moved by her performance, and when the ballet closes in financial disaster leaving its cast penniless, he invites Lydia to move into his Bloomsbury house. No strangers to scandalously unconventional liaisons, Maynard's Bloomsbury friends--Virginia and Leonard Woolf, Vanessa and Clive Bell, Duncan Grant and Lytton Strachey--are intrigued to find the resolutely homosexual Maynard falling for a woman. They assume it is a passing fad. After all, Lydia is a noisy, uneducated chatterbox, while Maynard is a brilliant intellectual whose encylopaedic knowledge and genius for strategy have already made him indispensable to the Treasury. But when Maynard pulls out of a Royal Commission tour to stay close to Lydia, his friends realise they must act. As Virginia writes to her sister Vanessa, everything they value risks ruin from this 'parokeet' whose conversation is limited to 'one shriek, two dances'. Anything other than a brief affair would be 'a fatal and irreparable mistake'. Maynard must be rescued from himself. Vividly recreating Lydia's life-changing journey from Tsarist St Petersburg to Jazz Age London via the Paris of Proust and Picasso, this compelling new novel celebrates a love story that is utterly unexpected, true, and stranger than fiction."-- Publisher's website

In this book, 17 poets, playwrights, and novelists talk with candor about how they begin to write, how they approach a new piece of work, and how they develop it.

Vanessa e Virginia è la storia di due donne: la celebre scrittrice Virginia Woolf, autrice di capolavori come Gita al faro e La signora Dalloway, e sua sorella Vanessa Bell, pittrice. Cresciute nel perbenismo vittoriano di una famiglia borghese di Londra, le due sorelle lottarono fin dalla gioventù per liberarsene, seguendo ciascuna la propria vocazione artistica; all’inizio del Novecento, intorno a loro si raccolse il famoso «Circolo di Bloomsbury», un gruppo di intellettuali e artisti che avrebbe influenzato radicalmente la cultura inglese ed europea. Narrato dalla voce di Vanessa e strutturato per capitoli che fotografano diversi momenti nella vita delle due sorelle, il romanzo ripercorre il loro rapporto, segnato da complicità, gelosia, competizione, reciproci tradimenti e inestirpabile affetto. Dai giochi dell’infanzia ai primi esperimenti creativi, a un’età adulta segnata da matrimoni, amanti e figli, lutti dolorosi, successi e fallimenti – fino, nel caso di Virginia, alla depressione e al suicidio – veniamo trasportati in un mondo complesso e affascinante che Vanessa, in quanto pittrice, racconta con un occhio particolare per le luci, i colori, le immagini.