Toni Bentley
Born	1958 (age 67–68) Perth, Western Australia
Occupation	Writer
Period	1982–present
Genre	Non-fiction
Notable awards	Guggenheim Fellowship

Toni Bentley (born 1958) is an Australian-German dancer and writer. Bentley was born inPerth, Western Australia.

Bentley's father, P. J. Bentley, is an Australianbiologist andendocrinologist. Her brother, Dr. David Bentley, is amolecular biologist at theUniversity of Colorado Denver.^[1] She took her first ballet class at age four inBristol, England, and entered theSchool of American Ballet, the official school ofNew York City Ballet, at age ten. At age seventeen she joinedGeorge Balanchine's New York City Ballet where she performed for ten years under his tutelage. She retired from the stage at age 26 owing to a hip injury.^[2]

Bentley has written five books.Winter Season, A Dancer's Journal, was published when she was 22 years old byRandom House. It is a diary of her life as a corps-de-ballet dancer in the New York City Ballet. It was called "a mini-marvel" byRobert Craft inThe New York Review of Books.^[3] Her other books includeHolding On to the Air: theAutobiography ofSuzanne Farrell (co-authored with Farrell,Simon & Schuster, 1990);Costumes by Karinska (Harry N. Abrams, 1995) about Russian costume designerBarbara Karinska;Sisters of Salome (Yale University Press, 2002), a cultural history of thefemme fatale and origins of modernstriptease; andThe Surrender, An Erotic Memoir (ReganBooks/HarperCollins, 2004). All of her books have been named as Notable Books of the Year byThe New York Times. She has written essays and reviews forThe New York Times Book Review,^[4][5][6]Vogue,^[7]The New Republic,^[8]Bookforum,^[9][10] andCR Fashionbook.^[11][12] Her essay "The Bad Lion", originally published inThe New York Review of Books,^[13] was selected forThe Best American Essays (2010) by editorChristopher Hitchens.

She has given lectures atHarvard University,^[14] theOscar Wilde Society, thePhiladelphia Museum of Art, theZimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, theUniversity of North Florida, thePhiloctetes Society, and at THiNK 2013. In 2008 she was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship.^[15]

HarperCollins published Bentley's bookThe Surrender (2004), a memoir of her experiences with heterosexualsodomy and a celebration of female sexual submission. At the time the book caused Bentley considerable notoriety given her perceived status as part of cultured society and the taboo nature of the subject matter.^[16][17] The subject has since received considerable mainstream attention because of the worldwide profile gained byFifty Shades of Grey. The book has been translated into eighteen languages. A one-woman play adaptation ofThe Surrender,La Rendición^[18] directed by Spanish film directorSigfrid Monleón [es] adapted by Swiss-German actressIsabelle Stoffel [de] had its premiere in Spanish in Madrid at the Microteatro Por Dinero in January 2012. Stoffel starred in the production. It was subsequently produced by the Spanish National Theatre (Centro Dramático Nacional)^[19] in January 2013 at theTeatro María Guerrero in Madrid. The play had its English-language world premiere at theEdinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2013, and had its American premiere at theClurman Theatre in New York City in January 2014. It has also been performed in Buenos Aires, Barcelona, Valencia, and in a German-language version,Die Hingabe in Kiel, Germany, and Bern, Switzerland.^{[citation needed]}

• Winter Season: A Dancer's Journal (Random House, 1982)
• Holding On to the Air (Simon & Schuster, 1990)
• Costumes by Karinska (Harry N. Abrams, 1995)
• Sisters of Salome (Yale University Press, 2002)
• The Surrender: An Erotic Memoir (Ecco/HarperCollins, 2004)
• Serenade: A Balanchine Story (Pantheon Books, 2022)

• Remembering Lincoln (editor Nancy Reynolds, The Ballet Society, 2007)
• Reading Dance (editor Robert Gottlieb, Pantheon Books, 2008)
• Dirty Words, A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex (editorEllen Sussman, Bloomsbury, 2008)
• Best American Essays 2010 (editorChristopher Hitchens, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010)
• New York Diaries 1609–2009 (editor Teresa Carpenter, Modern Library, 2012)

• Official website
• Contributions,The New York Times

• 1958 births
• Living people
• Australian ballerinas
• Australian women writers
• Writers from Perth, Western Australia

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