#450
Title: Ali and Nino: A Love Story
Author: Kurban Said
Translator: Jenia Graman
Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday
Year: 1937/2000
Country: Azerbaijan
284 pages
There's a lot of nice language in this 1937 novel by Kurban Said. This is a pseudonym for Lev Nussimbaum--or is it? Though the novel stands nicely on its own, half the fun is the mystery of its authorship.
The novel itself is about Ali Khan, an Azeri Muslim, and his love, Nino Kipiani, a Christian Georgian girl. Their relationship is emblematic of both the fruits and strain of the meeting of Europe and Asia. Said does a good job of beginning with a simple narrative from the perspective of a youth and gradually increasing the complexity as he ages and as his city of Baku, Azerbaijan is pulled into the Bolshevik Revolution.
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