Picador lands NYC Ballet star Pazcoguin's 'page-turner'

Picador has landed Swan Dive, a “page-turning, one-of-a-kind” book by award-winning New York City Ballet soloist Georgina Pazcoguin.

Georgina Morley, publishing director, acquired UK and Commonwealth rights from Brandi Bowles at United Talent Agency. Picador will publish Swan Dive on 14th October 2021, following Henry Holt in the US on 27th July 2021.

The publisher said: “In this love letter to the art of dance and the sport that has been her livelihood, NYCB’s first Asian American female soloist, Georgina Pazcoguin, lays bare her unfiltered story of leaving small-town Pennsylvania for New York City and training amid the unique demands of being a hybrid professional athlete/artist, all before finishing high school. She throws us into the fascinating, whirling shoes of dancers in one of the most revered ballet companies in the world with an unapologetic sense of humour about the cut-throat, survival-of-the-fittest mentality at NYCB. Some swan dives are literal: even in the ballet, there are plenty of face-plants, backstage fights, late-night parties, and raucous company bonding sessions.”

Pazcoguin was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania. She began her dance training at the age of four and is today a soloist with the New York City Ballet. She has also appeared on Broadway, making her debut in 2015 as Ivy Smith in “On the Town”, and also performed as Victoria in the 2016 Broadway revival of “Cats”.

She commented: “Why should this book grace your shelves? With prominence? Receiving your accolades and admiration? Well because in my heart of hearts I think being a ballerina is a great gift to our world. This book is my attempt at a love letter to my ephemeral art form. But more importantly, this book is a bridge; a peek behind the curtain. It spotlights the tenacity and grit that it takes to, not only be an artist, but a modern-day Ballerina in New York City today. My name is Georgina Pazcoguin and I am the rogue ballerina because I am an outlier in a flawed world of grace. A world I love, yet it is a world in which I have had to fight to be seen and accepted. After reading this book I hope you’ll agree with me that even through its frayed tulle, ballet is worth saving for future generations to enchant and inspire.”

Morley added: “I have adored ballet since I was first taken to see 'La Fille Mal Gardée' at Covent Garden when I was five. Reading Ballet Shoes a few years later cemented the love and, more recently, like so many others I lapped up the gloriously bonkers 'Black Swan' in the cinema. Georgina Pazcoguin’s grippingly readable account of her life in ballet is catnip to me—and will be to so many readers. But it’s not just a wild ride from behind the velvet curtains. It is an important rallying cry for the world of dance, a world that has been riven by harassment, abuse and racism. Picador couldn’t be more excited to be bringing Swan Dive to British readers.”