Ali and Nino

Fülszöveg

?ma?
The novel Ali and Nino lives up lo the ancient Latin saying "Habent sua fata, libelli" or "Every book has its own destiny" because the novel's publishing background is almost as interesting as the story. F irst published in German in Vienna in 1937 and considered by many to be one of the great romantic stories, Ali and Nino is now restored to print for a new generation of readers. The "mystery" of the book's authorship naturally lias been raised again.
Forgotten after publication in the chaos of the Second World War, Ali and Nino was rediscovered for the first time when Jenia Graman stumbled upon it in a second-hand bookstore in the ruins of postwar Berlin. Taken by its quality and the unusual story itself, she translated it and saw to its publication first in England and then in the United States. It was impossible for decades to identify the author behind die pseudonym, but it now seems clear that "Kurban Said" is a pseudonym masking two different people—a woman, the... Tovább

Fülszöveg

?ma?
The novel Ali and Nino lives up lo the ancient Latin saying "Habent sua fata, libelli" or "Every book has its own destiny" because the novel's publishing background is almost as interesting as the story. F irst published in German in Vienna in 1937 and considered by many to be one of the great romantic stories, Ali and Nino is now restored to print for a new generation of readers. The "mystery" of the book's authorship naturally lias been raised again.
Forgotten after publication in the chaos of the Second World War, Ali and Nino was rediscovered for the first time when Jenia Graman stumbled upon it in a second-hand bookstore in the ruins of postwar Berlin. Taken by its quality and the unusual story itself, she translated it and saw to its publication first in England and then in the United States. It was impossible for decades to identify the author behind die pseudonym, but it now seems clear that "Kurban Said" is a pseudonym masking two different people—a woman, the Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels, and a man, Lev Nussimbaum.
Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels was bom von Bodmershof in 1894 and came from a cultivated ancient Austrian family. She published articles, short stories, philosophic works on Plato, was a regular contributor to the Prager Tagblatt—then the leading newspaper in Prague—and lived in a literary circle. Besides Ali and Nino her name attaches to another novel, The Girl from the Golden Horn.
Lev Nussimbaum—who possibly had the original idea for the novel—was Jewish, born in Baku in 1905. Nussimbaum's father took Lev and perhaps a German governess to Berlin during the tumult of the Russian Revolution. Nussimbaum completed his studies there, became a journalist and later wrote books about Mohammed, Nikolas 11. Lenin, Reza Shah Pahlevi and regional geo-political issues. These books were published in London and New York under the name Essad Bey, the name he had taken in his youth when he converted to Islam. After Hitler seized power, Nussimbaum fled Berlin for still-independent Austria where an intense friendship with Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels, her family and circle developed. Ali and Nino is almost certainly the result of this relationship. Which sections of the novel are the work of which author remains an unsolved mystery.
IKMMhhIHbhHHhISH ifei^i^.u. - Dr. Heinz Barazon Vissza