Welcome to Bujones Book

Fernando Bujones was born in Miami of Cuban parents. His autobiography started from his dance diary and proceeded in earnest, in collaboration with his long-time ballet coach, Zeida Cecilia-Mendez, once Fernando became Artistic Director of the Orlando Ballet and was no longer dancing. "The revelation of this book," as described in the Preface by Anna Kisselgoff, the renown dance critic of The New York Times, "is its detailed account of the sheer amount of labor and training that allowed Fernando to acquire his sensational technique and the dramatic interpretations that were so important to him."

The autobiography takes the reader through Fernando's escape from Cuba at age 9, to his start as a gifted scholarship student at the School of American Ballet in New York City; his incredible rise as the youngest principal dancer of American Ballet Theatre, the first American dancer to win the Gold Medal at the Varna International Competitions, to the tumultuous years that followed Mikail Baryshnikov's take-over of ABT. The story of their very public disagreement and Fernando's abrupt departure from ABT takes the reader behind the curtains of the professional world of dance, and his subsequent super-star status with his international career. His incredible story is documented in this book of memories, not only by his and Zeida's writings, but by his colleagues, those of the reviewers and dance critics who wrote of his performances, and by others whose lives were touched by Fernando. During Fernando's untimely illness while working on his autobiography with Zeida, he made her promise she would finish his book. This is their story.