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Ali and Nino: A Love Story

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"Ali and Nino: A Love Story" is a poignant tale of love and adventure which Queen Shahrazad would have been proud to add to her anthology. This compelling story is set in Baku, Azerbaijan, the oil rich city on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Depending on one's religion and ethnicity, Baku used to be considered either the easternmost city in Europe, or the doorway to the Orient. Many ancient, aristocratic and fabulously wealthy families, Georgian and Armenian Christians, and Persian Muslims lived here for generations. The Russian Empire, which encompassed both Georgia and Azerbaijan, maintained a tenuous peace, and, in fact, the citizens of Baku formed deep intercultural friendships which went back a hundred years, or more. However, beneath the surface, the conflict between Islam and Christianity seethed in the never-ending struggle for cultural and religious domination. The novel covers the turbulent times from 1909 to 1920, and opens on the eve of World War I, continues through the Bolshevik Revolution, and provides deep insight into the conflicts between Eastern and Western cultures.

Ali Khan Shirvanshir, the son and heir of an ancient and noble Persian family is our protagonist and narrator. He was born and raised in Baku, Azerbaijan, in the Trans-Caucasus, at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, Christianity and Islam, modernity and tradition. Ali Khan is finishing his last year of high school as the novel begins. His forty classmates at the Imperial Russian Humanistic High School of Baku are a mixed lot, numbering thirty Mohammedans, four Armenians, two Poles, three Sectarians, and one Russian. Their Russian Professor condescendingly informs his pupils during a geography lesson that it is their responsibility to decide "whether our town should belong to progressive Europe or to reactionary Asia." He is not pleased when Ali Khan states his preference for Asia.

Ali is fascinated by the secrets, mysteries, hidden nooks and alleys of Baku, his home - "the soft night murmurs, the moon over flat roofs and hot quiet afternoons in the mosque's courtyards," the scent of sea air and the smell of oil. He thanks God that he was born a Muslim of the Shiite faith. He only wishes to live his life and die in the same street, in the same house where he was born - along with Nino Kipiani, with the flashing eyes, who eats with a knife and fork, goes about without a veil, and wears sheer silk stockings. Although young, the two love deeply, their feelings continue to grow and endure in spite of the seemingly insurmountable cultural and religious conflicts that confront them. They are both children of the Caucasus, and their friendship was born on the Caspian shores of Baku.

When Ali recounts to Nino the discussion that took place in class and how he had heatedly argued for Baku to remain Asian, Nino says bluntly: "Ali Khan, you are stupid. Thank God we are in Europe. If we were in Asia they would have made me wear the veil ages ago and you could not see me."

Ali has the soul of a desert man. A friend once told him, "The Orient's dry intoxication, comes from the desert, where hot wind and hot sand make men drunk, where the world is simple and without problems. The desert man has but one face and knows but one truth, and that truth fulfills him. The fanatic comes from the desert." This might have been true of Ali if it were not for his great love for Nino, his real life Georgian Christian princess. Their feelings for each other makes them both much more complex characters than they would be otherwise, encompassing a greater wisdom and compassion together than they would have ever been able to alone.

A pious friend tells Ali, "The woman is just an acre on which the man sows." He reminds Ali that women have "no souls nor intelligence. No Paradise or Hell is waiting for a woman. When she dies she just disintegrates into nothing." Ali does not believe this, but begins to feel confused and alienated. Then his father advises him to never forget, when he marries, his wife will live in his shadow. Meanwhile, after the couple's engagement is announced, Nino's father talks with Ali about the necessity for mutual trust and respect in marriage. "Man and wife," he says, "should help each other by word and deed. And they must never forget that they have equal rights and that their souls are their own."

The couple's relationship is at the center of the novel's events, but "Ali and Nino" is much more than a romance. The story takes the reader on a fascinating magic carpet ride to cosmopolitan Baku; irresistibly beautiful Tbilisi, capital of Georgia; the Karabakh, of western Azerbaijan, where the world's most glorious and hardy horses are bred; Teheran, the ancient, mystical capital city of Persia, and the mountains of Dagestan. We witness the consequences of love and passion; war, political and cultural turmoil, and revolution; honor and disgrace, and the impact of Islam, Christianity, and newly born Bahaism on the times.

While reading "Ali and Nino : A Love Story," I was reminded of an old saying my grandmother used to repeat, "A bird may love a fish, but where will they build a home." Ali and Nino loved each other deeply, were bound by a strong friendship and mutual respect, but in the period in which they lived it was almost impossible for them to find a living environment in which both of them could breathe and be who they were as individuals, as well as a couple.

This is a beautifully written novel, both lyrical and powerful in its use of language. What is most strange, is that the author's, or authors,' story is almost as dramatic as that of Ali and Nino. The novel was first published in German, in Germany, in 1937. Paul Theroux, who wrote the Afterword to the Anchor Edition, (the one I have and recommend), calls the novel, "....one of literature's foundlings." Apparently, lost and/or forgotten in the chaos of WWII and the aftermath, "Ali and Nino" was rediscovered in a secondhand bookstore in the ruins of postwar Berlin by Jenia Graman. She read the novel, and struck by the originality and beauty of the story, translated it and saw to its publication - first in England and then in the United States.

It is thought that the author, Kurban Said, is actually two people. Lev Nussimbaum was a Jew, born in Baku in 1905 whose family moved to Berlin during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Nussimbaum became a journalist and author, and eventually converted to Islam, taking the name Essad Bey. When Hitler became Chancellor of the German Nation in 1933, Nussimbaum moved to Austria where he began an intense friendship with Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels, also a writer. It is thought that "Ali and Nino" is a collaborated effort between the two. Whoever wrote this extraordinary novel, it is well worth your attention!
JANA

First, you simply must read this book. There's no way around that.

Ali and Nino is a lyrically written story of love and war, honor and country, cultural blend and clash set in WWI-era Transcaucasia (ie, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia). The novel has simply *all* the elements of greatness: well-developed characters, a vivid setting, a gripping plot, and an examination of larger themes -- all crammed into this little-known, relatively compact work.

Love in the face of cultural obstacles, in the face of war and patriotic duty. Love in its innocence, its longing, its maturity. Love between people, love for a people, and the tragedy of a lost world. It's really an incredible, incredible book -- one which, despite its age, seems more capable of tackling the issues we see in our own post-cold-war world than any other book I've read.

Read this book. It will delight and reward you.

I remember checking this book out of the library over and over again in junior high 25 years ago and it was indeed spellbinding. A current article in National Georgraphic on Iran brought back memories of this lovely book and I decided to see if it was still in print. I'm thrilled it has been "rediscovered."

1000 words are not enough to praise this book. It is written by a Russian jew who converted to islam, flew for the Russian revolution, but he wrote also a hagiography about Stalin. The book is a comparison between Asia and Europe, where Asia (the East) wins. It is also a love story and a political novel. Whatever, it is a book which makes you cry, a year after you read it!

Set in the confluence of 3 cultures: Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia, this book tells the story of Ali (a Azeri) and Nino (his Georgian sweetheart). It's a love story, a history lesson, an impassioned plea for tolerance, a modern novel written in the 1930s and set in the 1910s. It's hard to say more without giving away the story, but this has been my favorite book for over 20 years. I scoured rare books stores for years and eventually got my own copy and am delighted to see it reissued for a new generation to enjoy.

After reading "The Orientalist" I just had to follow up with Ali and Nino. I have to agree, it's a masterpiece. It's an epic love story. It's a bit of a history lesson. And it gives a lot of sympathetic insight into cultures that I have very little sympathy towards.

Ali's extreme passions are in many ways admirable, with consequences that are unpredictable in the short term but inevitable in the long term. In that respect I think you get significant understanding of the bizarrre, fatalistic outlook of Shiism from Ali's story, and a wonderfully human-scale view of Eastern and Western cultures crashing together. The terrible destruction of Baku by competing factions reads like a template of so many similar events to come in the century to follow. The scenes of Iran in the last stages of the Qajars' decay are utterly fascinating. All of the main characters seem so profoundly and honestly rooted in their respective cultures by an author who is deeply aware of and appreciative of those cultures, yet in no way blind to their respective faults.

I would recommend you read "Ali and Nino" before reading "the Orientalist," but only because I think it will be all the more fascinating to read Lev Nussimbaum's astonishing life story in light of his greatest work rather than the other way around. But if you're coming at it from having just read "The Orientalist," well, that certainly won't take anything away from the power of "Ali and Nino."

Written in the 30's and out of print for many years, this novel has suddenly become very timely. It's a Romeo and Juliet story set in the midst of political turbulence far more serious than ever existed in Renaissance Italy. Ali is a Muslim from Azerbaijan and Nino a woman from Christian Georgia; both countries are in the Caucasus, a strip of land that straddles Asia and Europe, east and west, and has rarely seen peace. These childhood friends marry and then struggle to overcome differences of culture far more profound than they ever knew. When the lovers are secluded in the wilderness, all is well, but the real world intrudes forcefully. The couple are forced to flee to Persia (Iran) and Nino must adopt the extremely limited lifestyle of a Muslim woman. The descriptions of how profoundly she must change her life, and her frustration and dismay and anger, are vivid and sadly authentic.

As we in the west struggle to understand the mystical power of Islam, so strong that young men cheerfully die for the promise of an afterlife, I was drawn back to the book's most powerful scene, in which Ali, a sophisticated educated man, is drawn almost against his will into a wild, fanatical religious celebration.

"Suddenly I was overcome by a new and irrestible feeling--the cry gripped my soul with its warning, and I was filled with the desire for utter submission. ....the Mystery of the Unseen, the Gate of Sorrow, that leads to the Grace of the Redeemer...I had become part of the crowd. I walked with the broad-shouldered men, and my fists hammered against my naked breast...Someone put a heavy chain into my hand, and I felt the burning pain on my back..." The dream-like sequence goes on; much later Ali returns home to find that Nino has (somewhat improbably) witnessed part of the events of the night from her parents' window above the street.

The story behind this novel is a mystery in itself, written up extensively in the New Yorker a couple of years ago, and for many years no one was sure who really wrote it--Baroness Elfriede Ehrenfels? Essad Bey? Lev Nussimbaum? The one sure thing is that Kurban Said is a pseudonym. Recent scholarship has clarified the issue, but cause one to reflect on why the issue was so secret for so long.

I'm told a Chinese curse is "May you live in interesting times!" This book is much more than an intoxicating love story, it is a love story set in *very* interesting times and places. The time is early twentieth century; the characters Azerbaijani, Armenian, Georgian, Persian; the place mostly Causasia (including Karabagh); the writing is exquisite.
See "http://salamis.emu.edu.tr.:80/~semiz/fv-bk.html#ali-nino" for more detail.

I have written a guide book to Azerbaijan for Trailblazer which gives you the practical information you need for visiting that country, but to get a feeling for the spiritual complexity and historical paradox all wrapped up in a truely timelss and beautiful novel, read Ali and Nino.

While the introduction to the book gives an excellent deconstruction of its themes and offers some information about its mysterious author, it also contains one major spoiler that gives away the ending of the book. If you do not want any inkling of how the book is going to end, I recommend that you read the introduction after you have finished the book. Which won't take long!