{"product_id":"passport-to-paris-and-los-angeles-poems-9781589882041","title":"Passport to Paris and Los Angeles Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003ePassport to Paris \u003c\/i\u003eis one of the great neglected memoirs of the 20th-century arts. The cosmopolitan composer Vernon Duke, born Vladimir Dukelsky, succeeded not only in living a mesmerizing life but also in telling his story with incomparable novelistic flair. A sampling of Duke's California poetry augments the allure of an essential republication.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Alex Ross, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Rest Is Noise\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eWagnerism\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\"\u003ci\u003ePassport to Pari\u003c\/i\u003es would qualify as a legendary autobiography except that its long absence rendered it largely forgotten. Its reemergence amounts to a literary and musical correction. Amid accounts of eruptions and fashions on three continents, Vernon Duke explains his irregular ears and provides casual access to the Gershwins, a tingling snapshot of Ethel Waters's opening in \u003ci\u003eCabin in the Sky\u003c\/i\u003e, two memorably bandaged fingers--pudgy in Diaghilev's case, worshipped in Stravinsky's--and a sentence that begins: 'Following mother's death and the war, I lost much of my notorious foppishness...' A treasurable bonus is the sheaf of poems uncovered and translated by Boris Dralyuk--poems, not verse or lyrics, though 'Arizona' thirsts for music.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003e--Gary Giddins, author of \u003ci\u003eVisions of Jazz: The First Century\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003ePassport to Paris\u003c\/i\u003e is a witty, pleasantly chatty, richly detailed memoir of a life in emigration and of a dual career in the \"serious\" and \"popular\" music worlds. It provides one of the most vivid and refreshingly buoyant accounts of the perilous exodus from the collapsed Russian Empire undertaken by some two million people during the late 1910s and early 1920s, and also includes rare intimate portraits of major figures in 20th-century music, from Sergei Prokofiev to the Gershwin brothers. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis edition features a new Introduction by Boris Dralyuk as well as poems Duke wrote in California in the 1960s, here translated from the Russian by Dralyuk, that offer a glimpse of the last happy decade of Duke's life.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eVernon Duke \u003c\/b\u003e(1903-1969), accomplished composer of modern\u003cbr\u003eclassical music and important contributor to the Great American Songbook\u003cbr\u003e(\"April in Paris,\" \"Autumn in New York,\" \"I Can't Get Started,\" etc.), was born\u003cbr\u003ein the former Russian Empire as Vladimir Dukelsky and fled war-torn Ukraine\u003cbr\u003ewith his family in 1919. In \u003ci\u003ePassport to Paris\u003c\/i\u003e, he chronicles, with\u003cbr\u003echaracteristic wit and verve, his childhood, his escape to Istanbul, and his\u003cbr\u003elife in exile until 1955. The memoir is a unique document of 20th-century\u003cbr\u003emusical history and of the émigré experience. The poems he wrote in California in the 1960s, here translated from the Russian by Boris Dralyuk, offer a\u003cbr\u003eglimpse of the last happy decade of his life. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eBoris Dralyuk \u003c\/b\u003eis the author of \u003ci\u003eMy\u003cbr\u003eHollywood and Other Poems\u003c\/i\u003e (Paul Dry, 2022), editor of \u003ci\u003e1917: \u003cbr\u003eStories and Poems from the Russian Revolution\u003c\/i\u003e (2016), co-editor\u003cbr\u003eof \u003ci\u003eThe Penguin Book of Russian Poetry\u003c\/i\u003e (2015), and translator\u003cbr\u003eof volumes by Isaac Babel, Andrey Kurkov, Leo Tolstoy, and other authors. His\u003cbr\u003epoems have appeared in \u003ci\u003eThe New York Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eThe Hudson\u003cbr\u003eReview\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eRaritan Quarterly\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eBest American Poetry 2023\u003c\/i\u003e, and\u003cbr\u003eelsewhere, and his criticism and translations have appeared in the \u003ci\u003eTimes\u003cbr\u003eLiterary Supplement\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eLondon Review of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eThe New\u003cbr\u003eYorker\u003c\/i\u003e, among other venues. Formerly editor-in-chief of the \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles\u003cbr\u003eReview of Books\u003c\/i\u003e, he is currently a Tulsa Artist Fellow, editor-in-chief of \u003ci\u003eNimrod\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003cbr\u003eand professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Tulsa.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Paul Dry Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51500735332626,"sku":"9781589882041","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_71bac753-3cb9-42b3-b069-36fad97e838d.jpg?v=1753198386","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/passport-to-paris-and-los-angeles-poems-9781589882041","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}