To Soar With Eagles

About the Book

To Soar with Eagles is a collection of letters, anecdotes and conversations spanning the ten-year period of a unique relationship between the world famous Danish author Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen Blixen) and the young African American musician Eugene Haynes. Dinesen, once considered for the Nobel Prize, is best known for her books

Out of Africa, Seven Gothic Tales, Winter’s Tales and Angelic Avengers.

The friendship between Isak Dinesen and Eugene Haynes has been written about in several of her biographies: Judith Thurman’s Isak Dinesen-The Life of a Storyteller; Olga Pelensky’s Isak Dinesen-The Life and Imagination of a Seducer; and most extensively in Parmenia Migel’s Titania-The Biography of Isak Dinesen.

After reading To Soar With Eagles, William Maxwell, noted author and former literary editor for the New Yorker called it “ a constant pleasure and a real treat.”

About the Author

Eugene Haynes, Jr. is a former professor and Artist-in-Residence at Lincoln University, in Missouri. Haynes later served as Director of the Katherine Dunham Center for the Performing Arts at Southern Illinois University-East St. Louis Campus. The International Who’s Who of Intellectuals calls him “a widely acclaimed authority on the Romantic and Impressionist styles.” After graduation from Juilliard and studying with Nadie Boulanger, Haynes made his Carnegie Hall New York debut in 1958, and has since appeared there several times. New York critic Louis Biancolli wrote: “Americans reading of young Van Cliburn’s triumphs in Moscow may well be proud of still another ambassador of the keyboard – the gifted young pianist Eugene Haynes. Born in East St. Louis, Illinois, Haynes has been garnering warm acclaim throughout Europe. A musician to his fingertips.” Isador Philipp called him “One of the greatest musical talents America has produced.”