Издания и произведения

Биографический роман американского журналиста Тома Рииса посвящен Льву Нусимбауму, бакинскому еврею, принявшему ислам, авантюристу и писателю, издававшему свои книги под псевдонимами Курбан Сайд и Эсад-бей. Его главный роман "Али и Нино", бестселлер 1930-х годов, пережил второе рождение в 1970-е и был переведен на сорок языков мира. Однако до расследования Тома Рииса настоящее имя человека, который скрывался под стоящим на обложке книги псевдонимом Курбан Сайд, оставалось неизвестным. На примере одной жизни, "исполненной тайн и опасностей", Риис описывает распад Российской империи, судьбы эмиграции в Стамбуле и Берлине, становление фашизма…

"Lev Nussimbaum was a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a bestselling author in Nazi Germany. Born in 1905 to a wealthy family in the oil-boom city of Baku, at the edge of the czarist empire, Lev escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan. He found refuge in Germany, where, writing under the names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, his remarkable books about Islam, desert adventures, and global revolution became celebrated throughout fascist Europe. His enduring masterpiece, Ali and Nino - a story of love across ethnic and religious boundaries, published on the eve of the Holocaust - is still in print today." "But…

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…