Paperback, 496 pages
English language
Published March 14, 2006 by Random House Trade Paperbacks.
An extraordinary and hugely topical story of a Jewish man's passion for the Arab world.On the border between West and East, a Jewish man with a passion for the Arab world.Tom Reiss first came across Nussimbaum when he went to the ex-USSR to research Russia's oil reserves, and discovered a novel instead. Written on the eve of the Second World War, Ali and Nino is a captivating love story set in the glamorous city of Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. The novel's depiction of a lost cosmopolitan society is enthralling, but equally intriguing is the identity of the man who wrote it. Who was Kurban Said, its supposed author? And why did he and his book fade into obscurity?For five years, Reiss tracked Said's protean identity from a wealthy Jewish childhood in Baku, to a romantic adolescence in Persia on the run from the Bolsheviks, and an exile in Berlin as bestselling …
An extraordinary and hugely topical story of a Jewish man's passion for the Arab world.On the border between West and East, a Jewish man with a passion for the Arab world.Tom Reiss first came across Nussimbaum when he went to the ex-USSR to research Russia's oil reserves, and discovered a novel instead. Written on the eve of the Second World War, Ali and Nino is a captivating love story set in the glamorous city of Baku, Azerbaijan's capital. The novel's depiction of a lost cosmopolitan society is enthralling, but equally intriguing is the identity of the man who wrote it. Who was Kurban Said, its supposed author? And why did he and his book fade into obscurity?For five years, Reiss tracked Said's protean identity from a wealthy Jewish childhood in Baku, to a romantic adolescence in Persia on the run from the Bolsheviks, and an exile in Berlin as bestselling author and self-proclaimed Muslim prince. The result is a thoroughly unexpected picture of the twentieth-century – of the origins of our ideas about race and religious self-definition, and of the roots of modern fanaticism.
Fascinating account of the life of Lev Nussimbaum from his childhood in pre-Revolutionary Russia to his death in Italy during World War II. If you're curious about that period and Europe in the time between the world wars it provides some excellent background. Good enough I bought a copy for my father for Christmas!
The fantastic biography of a historical odd-ball- a monarchist in communist times, a Jew obsessed with the Arab world, an ambitious pretender too lazy to escape his fate. The author takes you from Baku to Tehran to Berlin and all the while uncovers secret tribes, forgotten political movements, and all debris of history's losers while chasing the trail of Lev Nussimbaum, who will be forever etched in your mind after reading this fascinating portrait.
