Ali and Nino
by Kurban Said
List Price: $13.00
Pages: 282
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0385720408
Publisher: Vintage
The authorship of Ali and Nino is a subject of speculation and some controversy.
What little evidence exists is ambiguous and partially obscured by the
Nazi repression surrounding the book's publication in 1937. Some believe
that Kurban Said was the pen name of Essad Bey, which is itself the assumed
name of Lev Nussimbaum, while others argue that the book was written by
Bey and the Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels. Elfriede Ehrenfels was born in
1894 into an illustrious Austrian family. She published one other novel,
The Girl from the Golden Horn, as well as articles, short stories, philosophic
works on Plato, and regular contributions to the Prager Tagblatt, Prague's
leading newspaper.
Lev Nussimbaum was born in
Baku in 1905, the son of a Jewish businessman. He later converted to Islam,
reinventing himself as a man of the desert and changing his name to Essad
Bey. In the chaos of the Russian Revolution, Bey and his father left Baku
for Berlin. But after Hitler rose to power, Bey fled for still-independent
Austria, where he met Ehrenfels and enjoyed the vibrant atmosphere of
the Café Herrenhof, mingling with such writers as Hermann Broch, Max Brod,
and Franz Werfel before fleeing the Nazi advance once again, this time
to Italy. Bey wrote books on Mohammed, Nikolas II, Lenin, Reza Shah Pahlevi
and, in an act of considerable daring, even proposed himself as the official
biographer of Mussolini.
Because Bey wrote in German
and his Austrian publishers needed to sell his work to German-speaking
readers--chiefly in Nazi Germany--his Jewish origins may have been deliberately
concealed by the pseudonym Kurban Said. Thus it is not clear whether the
Baroness Ehrenfels--with whom Bey may have had a love affair--helped write
the novel or served as a cover through whom royalties could be funneled
to Bey in Italy. Bey died in Positano in 1942.
Today, the author known as
Kurban Said is highly esteemed in Azerbeidshan, and many Azeris consider
Ali and Nino to be their national novel.
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