Born on a train in Stalin’s Russia, Rudolf Nureyev was ballet’s first pop icon. No other dancer of our time has generated the same excitement – both on and off stage.

Nureyev’s achievements and conquests became legendary: he rose out of Tatar peasant poverty to become the Kirov’s thrilling maverick star; slept with his beloved mentor’s wife; defected to the West in l961; sparked Rudimania across the globe; gave his rabid sexuality full reign; established the most rhapsodic partnership in dance history with the middle-aged Margot Fonteyn; reinvented male technique; gatecrashed modern dance; moulded new stars; and staged Russia’s unknown ballet masterpieces in the West.

Julie Kavanagh’s uncompromising and magnificent biography, ten years in the making, is a brilliant tribute to a superstar the world can never forget.