Amanda Vaill – författare

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHYA NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICEFINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD IN BIOGRAPHYFINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE IN BIOGRAPHY"e;Marvelous . . . An act not only of recovery, but of world building."e; -The Atlantic"e;A thoroughly fascinating biography, filled with Vaill's signature warmth, humor and insight."e; -The New York Times Book Review "e;Elegantly written, intimately detailed and infused with feeling, a gripping account of these two remarkable women, their elite family and their tumultuous era."e; -The Wall Street Journal"e;One of our great biographers takes the sisters out of Hamilton's supporting cast and puts them front and center."e; -Town & Country America's founding era reconsidered through the lives of two women as formidable as, and in some respects stronger than, the men they loved, married, and mothered.If it hadn't been for the Revolutionary War, things might have been very different for the two women Alexander Hamilton came to describe as his "e;dear brunettes."e; Angelica and Elizabeth Schuyler, daughters of colonial Hudson Valley aristocracy, would have followed their family's expectations, making dynastic marriages and supervising substantial households-but they didn't. Instead, they became embroiled in the turmoil of America's insurrection against Great Britain, and rebelled themselves, in ways as different as each sister was from the other, against the destiny mapped out for them.Glamorous Angelica, who sought fulfillment in attachments to powerful men, eloped with a war profiteer and led a luxurious life, charming Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and the Prince of Wales. Eliza, too candid for flirtation and uninterested in influence or intrigue, married a penniless outsider, Alexander Hamilton, and devoted herself to his career; but after his appointment as America's first treasury secretary, she was challenged by the public and private controversies that plagued him-not least of all the attraction that grew between him and her adored sister.When tragedy followed, everything changed for both women: one was deprived of her animating spirit, while the other gained a new, self-determined life.Drawing on deep archival research, Amanda Vaill interweaves this family drama with its historical context, creating a narrative with the sweep and intimacy of a nineteenth-century novel. Full of battles and dinner parties, murky politics and transparent frocks, fierce loyalties and betrayals both public and personal, Pride and Pleasure brings two extraordinary American heroines to life.

The titanic choreographer, creator of memorable ballets, master of Broadway musicals, legendary show doctor and director, now revealed in his own words--the closest we will get to a memoir/autobiography--from his voluminous letters, journals, notes, diaries, never before published. Edited, and with commentary by Amanda Vaill, author of Robbins''s biography, Somewhere, 2006 ("I can''t imagine a better book about Robbins ever being written"--The Wall Street Journal).He was famous for reinventing the Broadway musical, creating a vernacular American ballet, pushing the art form to new boundaries where it had never gone before, integrating dance seamlessly with character, story and music, and as Associate Artistic Director, Ballet Master, and Co-Artistic Director, shaping the New York City Ballet with daring and brio for more than five decades through his often startling choreography in ballet''s classical idiom. He was known as the king of Broadway, the most sought-after director-choreographer who gave shape to On the Town (1944), Call Me Madam (1950), The King and I (1951), Wonderful Town (1953), Peter Pan (1954), The Pajama Game (1954), Silk Stockings (1955), West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), and many other classic musicals, winning four Tony Awards, two Oscars, and two Emmys. He shocked and betrayed those he loved and worked with, by naming names to the House Un-American Activities Committee. ("I betrayed my manhood, my Jewishness, my parents, my sister," he wrote in a diary. "I can''t undo it.")     Now, Amanda Vaill, Jerome Robbins biographer and authority, invited by the Robbins Foundation to draw on the closely-held vast Robbins archives, has put together a selection of his writings, giving us a sense of his extraordinary range as a thinker and artist, as well as a surprising and revealing glimpse into the mind and heart of this towering cultural giant.     Interspersed throughout, his correspondence with George Balanchine, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Robert Graves, Lincoln Kirstein, Arthur Laurents, Tanaquil Le Clercq (the fourth of Balanchine''s four wives, with whom Robbins was also in love), Laurence Olivier, Stephen Sondheim, et al.

From the author of the acclaimed Everybody Was So Young, the definitive and major biography of the great choreographer and Broadway legend Jerome RobbinsTo some, Jerome Robbins was a demanding perfectionist, a driven taskmaster, a theatrical visionary; to others, he was a loyal friend, a supportive mentor, a generous and entertaining companion and colleague. Born Jerome Rabinowitz in New York City in 1918, Jerome Robbins repudiated his Jewish roots along with his name only to reclaim them with his triumphant staging of Fiddler on the Roof. A self-proclaimed homosexual, he had romances or relationships with both men and women, some famous—like Montgomery Clift and Natalie Wood—some less so. A resolutely unpolitical man, he was forced to testify before Congress at the height of anti-Communist hysteria. A consummate entertainer, he could be paralyzed by shyness; nearly infallible professionally, he was conflicted, vulnerable, and torn by self-doubt. Guarded and adamantly private, he was an inveterate and painfully honest journal writer who confided his innermost thoughts and aspirations to a remarkable series of diaries and memoirs. With ballets like Dances at a Gathering, Afternoon of a Faun, and The Concert, he humanized neoclassical dance; with musicals like On the Town, Gypsy, and West Side Story, he changed the face of theater in America. In the pages of this definitive biography, Amanda Vaill takes full measure of the complicated, contradictory genius who was Jerome Robbins. She re-creates his childhood as the only son of Russian Jewish immigrants; his apprenticeship as a dancer and Broadway chorus gypsy; his explosion into prominence at the age of twenty-five with the ballet Fancy Free and its Broadway incarnation, On the Town; and his years of creative dominance in both theater and dance. She brings to life his colleagues and friends—from Leonard Bernstein and George Balanchine to Robert Wilson and Robert Graves—and his loves and lovers. And she tells the full story behind some of Robbins’s most difficult episodes, such as his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee and his firing from the film version of West Side Story.Drawing on thousands of pages of documents from Robbins’s personal and professional papers, to which she was granted unfettered access, as well as on other archives and hundreds of interviews, Somewhere is a riveting narrative of a life lived onstage, offstage, and backstage. It is also an accomplished work of criticism and social history that chronicles one man’s phenomenal career and places it squarely in the cultural ferment of a time when New York City was truly “a helluva town.”

Madrid, 1936. In a city blasted by civil war, six people meet and find their lives changed forever. Ernest Hemingway, his career stalled, his marriage sour, hopes this war will give him fresh material and new romance; Martha Gellhorn, an ambitious novice journalist hungry for love and experience, thinks she will find both with Hemingway in Spain. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, idealistic young photographers based in Paris, are inventing modern photojournalism as they capture history in the making. And Arturo Barea, Madrid's foreign press chief, and Ilsa Kulcsar, his Austrian deputy, are struggling to balance truth-telling with loyalty to their sometimes compromised cause-a struggle that places both of them in peril. Hotel Florida traces the tangled wartime destinies of these three couples against the backdrop of a critical moment in history. From the raw material of unpublished letters and diaries, official documents, and recovered reels of film, Amanda Vaill has created a narrative of love and reinvention that is, finally, a story about truth: finding it out, telling it, and living it-whatever the cost.

Amid the rubble of a city blasted by a civil war that many fear will cross borders and engulf Europe, the Hotel Florida on Madrid''s chic Gran Via has become a haven for foreign journalists and writers. It is here that six people meet and find their lives changed forever. Ernest Hemingway, his career stalled, his marriage sour, hopes that this war will give him fresh material and a new romance; Martha Gellhorn, an ambitious young journalist hungry for love and experience, thinks she will find both with Hemingway in Spain. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, idealistic and ground-breaking young photographers based in Paris, want to capture history in the making and are inventing moder photojournalism in the process. And Arturo Barea, chief of the Republican government''s foreign press office, and Ilsa Kulcsar, his Austrian deputy, are struggling to balance truth-telling with their loyalty to their sometimes-compromised cause - a struggle that places both of their lives at risk.Hotel Florida traces the tangled wartime destinies of these three couples - and a host of supporting characters - living as intensely as they had ever done, against the backdrop of a critical moment in history. It is a narrative of love and reinvention that is, finally, a story about truth, finding it, telling it - and living it, whatever the cost.

Amid the rubble of a city blasted by a civil war that many fear will cross borders and engulf Europe, the Hotel Florida on Madrid's chic Gran Via has become a haven for foreign journalists and writers. It is here that six people meet and find their lives changed forever. Ernest Hemingway, his career stalled, his marriage sour, hopes that this war will give him fresh material and a new romance; Martha Gellhorn, an ambitious young journalist hungry for love and experience, thinks she will find both with Hemingway in Spain. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro, idealistic and ground-breaking young photographers based in Paris, want to capture history in the making and are inventing moder photojournalism in the process. And Arturo Barea, chief of the Republican government’s foreign press office, and Ilsa Kulcsar, his Austrian deputy, are struggling to balance truth-telling with their loyalty to their sometimes-compromised cause - a struggle that places both of their lives at risk.Hotel Florida traces the tangled wartime destinies of these three couples - and a host of supporting characters - living as intensely as they had ever done, against the backdrop of a critical moment in history. It is a narrative of love and reinvention that is, finally, a story about truth, finding it, telling it - and living it, whatever the cost.

Hemingway necesitaba un éxito. Martha Gellhorn quería vivir peligrosamente. Barea sentía que su vida era una contradicción. Ilsa Kulcsar vivía para sus ideas. Gerda Taro y Robert Capa querían olvidarse de su pasado. Los seis, cada uno con su equipaje y su modo de mirar, llegan a Madrid y pasan por el hotel Florida, donde se reunían los periodistas extranjeros, los fotógrafos, los espías, los militares, bajo el estruendo de las bombas, en una guerra que los cambió a todos para siempre.Hotel Florida no es un estudio académico ni una ficción. Es una reconstrucción basada en cartas, diarios y memorias, documentos oficiales, películas, biografías, historias y noticias de la época. Un gran fresco de la Guerra Civil española, día a día, personaje a personaje. Una guerra sobre la que se han escrito cientos de libros, pero ninguno como este.