Virago, £8.99

The Baroness, By Hannah Rothschild

 

Boyd Tonkin Author Biography

Boyd Tonkin

Boyd Tonkin is Literary Editor at The Independent. An award-winning journalist, he was formerly Social Policy Editor of the New Statesman and has broadcast extensively for BBC arts and current affairs programmes. He has judged the Booker Prize, the Whitbread biography award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in literature.

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Friday 01 March 2013

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Almost incredible, yet true at every turn, this biography of the "jazz baroness" Nica Rothschild - Hannah's great-aunt - whirls us into a vortex of clashing, yet interconnected, worlds.

In the 1950s, inspired by the pianistic genius of Thelonious Monk, Nica fled the privilege of her family in Europe.

In bebop-era New York, she became not just the champion and patron of avant-garde jazz virtuosi but - in Monk's case - his devoted partner too.

Beyond the juicy scandal, this tale of a culture in transition rests, at root, on a love-story for the ages.

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