The Red Dancer

(, Main)

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Description

Against the dramatically imagined backdrop of pre-war Europe, Richard Skinner weaves an impressionistic collage of fiction and non-fiction to conjure the life, loves, fame and infamy of Mata Hari - a woman who continues to fascinate almost a century after her death.

Reviews

'Not quite a biography, nor exactly a novel... an impressionistic collage of imagined and researched material, an original and absorbing version of a cryptic life.' Daily Telegraph 'A fictionalised life of Mata Hari that tentatively, delicately and poignantly fills in the person behind the myth... Her story is told by multiple narrators, people who crossed her path but hardly knew her, so that her own perspective lingers in shadow, glinting here and there in hints... the mystery makes the woman, a self-indulgent lover of luxury without practical virtues, seem that much more vulnerable.' Observer '[The Red Dancer] eschews sensationalism in favour of an elegant understatedness that lends gravitas to a sad and complex tale.' Big Issue

Author Bio

Richard Skinner is a novelist, poet and critic. His most recent book, The Mirror, was described as 'beautifully written . . . immersive . . . captivating' by the Guardian. As Director of the Fiction Programme at Faber Academy, he created the flagship 'Writing a Novel' six-month course in 2009 and since then has helped hundreds of writers find their voice.