The Orientalist

Die ungewöhnliche und extraordinäre Geschichte des Lev Nussimbaum, Autor des Bestsellers Ali und Nino, eines Mannes, der, an der Grenze zwischen Ost und West geboren, sich ein Leben lang mit der (geliebten) arabischen Welt auseinandersetzen wird.

Zusatztext Spellbinding history . . . part detective yarn! part author biography! part travel saga . . . The Orientalist is completely fascinating. The Dallas Morning News Rarely in the literary annals of identity confusion has there been a tale as gripping. . . . A captivating and disquieting parable of the mystery of identity . . . truly page-turning. The Miami Herald Sympathetic! elegant! and extraordinarily affecting . . . Reiss's storytelling panache [is] spellbinding. Los Angeles Times Book Review Thrilling! novelistic and rich with the personal and political madness of early-twentieth-century Europe. Entertainment Weekly A brainy! nimble! remarkable book. Chicago Tribune A wondrous tale! beautifully told . . . mesmerizing! poignant! and almost incredible. Reiss! caught up in the spell of Essad Bey! has turned around and worked some magic of his own. The New York Times For sheer reading pleasure . . . this book cannot be bettered. The New York Sun Informationen zum Autor Tom Reiss has written about politics and culture for The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , The New Yorker , and elsewhere. He lives with his wife and daughters in New York City. Klappentext A thrilling page-turner of epic proportions, Tom Reiss's panoramic bestseller tells the true story of a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince in Nazi Germany. Lev Nussimbaum escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan and, as Essad Bey, became a celebrated author with the enduring novel Ali and Nino as well as an adventurer, a real-life Indiana Jones with a fatal secret. Reiss pursued Lev's story across ten countries and found himself caught up in encounters as dramatic and surrealand sometimes as heartbreakingas his subject's life. Leseprobe Introduction On the Trail of Kurban Said On a cold November morning in Vienna, I walked a maze of narrow streets on the way to see a man who promised to solve the mystery of Kurban Said. I was with Peter Mayer, the president of the Overlook Press, a large, rumpled figure in a black corduroy suit who wanted to publish Said's small romantic novel Ali andNino. Mayer tended to burst into enthusiastic monologues about thebook: You know how when you look at a Vermeer, and it's an interior,and it's quite quiet, yet somehow, what he does with perspective, with light, it feels much biggerthat's this novel! A love story set in the Caucasus on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Ali and Nino had been originally published in German in 1937 and was revived in translation in the seventies as a minor classic. But the question of the author's identity had never been resolved. All anyone agreed on was that Kurban Said was the pen name of a writer who had probably come from Baku, an oil city in the Caucasus, and that he was either a nationalist poet who was killed in the Gulags, or the dilettante son of an oil millionaire, or a Viennese café-society writer who died in Italy after stabbing himself in the foot. In the jacket photograph of a book called Twelve Secrets of the Caucasus, the mysterious author is dressed up as a mountain warriorwearing a fur cap, a long, flowing coat with a sewn-in bandolier, and a straight dagger at his waist. Mayer and I were on our way to a meeting with a lawyer named Heinz Barazon, who was challenging Overlook over proper author credit on the novel. Barazon claimed to know the true identity of Kurban Said, and as the lawyer for the author's heirs, he was insisting that it be acknowledged in the new edition of Ali and Nino or he would block publication. At the lawyer's address, next to a shop where some old women were bent over tables with needle and thread, we were buzzed into a lobby that could have had the grime of the Anschluss on its fixtures. Mayer squeez...

#8220;Spellbinding history . . . part detective yarn, part author biography, part travel saga . . . The Orientalist is completely fascinating.”
–The Dallas Morning News

“Rarely in the literary annals of identity confusion has there been a tale as gripping. . . . A captivating and disquieting parable of the mystery of identity . . . truly page-turning.”
–The Miami Herald

“Sympathetic, elegant, and extraordinarily affecting . . . Reiss’s storytelling panache [is] spellbinding.”
–Los Angeles Times Book Review

“Thrilling, novelistic and rich with the personal and political madness of early-twentieth-century Europe.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“A brainy, nimble, remarkable book.”
–Chicago Tribune

“A wondrous tale, beautifully told . . . mesmerizing, poignant, and almost incredible. Reiss, caught up in the spell of Essad Bey, has turned around and worked some magic of his own.”
–The New York Times

“For sheer reading pleasure . . . this book cannot be bettered.”
–The New York Sun

Autorentext

Tom Reiss has written about politics and culture for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and elsewhere.  He lives with his wife and daughters in New York City.

Klappentext

A thrilling page-turner of epic proportions, Tom Reiss’s panoramic bestseller tells the true story of a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince in Nazi Germany. Lev Nussimbaum escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan and, as “Essad Bey,” became a celebrated author with the enduring novel Ali and Nino as well as an adventurer, a real-life Indiana Jones with a fatal secret. Reiss pursued Lev’s story across ten countries and found himself caught up in encounters as dramatic and surreal–and sometimes as heartbreaking–as his subject’s life.

Leseprobe
Introduction
On the Trail of Kurban Said

On a cold November morning in Vienna, I walked a maze of narrow streets on the way to see a man who promised to solve the mystery of Kurban Said. I was with Peter Mayer, the president of the Overlook Press, a large, rumpled figure in a black corduroy suit who wanted to publish Said’s small romantic novel *Ali andNino.*Mayer tended to burst into enthusiastic monologues about thebook: “You know how when you look at a Vermeer, and it’s an interior,and it’s quite quiet, yet somehow, what he does with perspective, with light, it feels much bigger–that’s this novel!” A love story set in the Caucasus on the eve of the Russian Revolution, Ali and Nino had been originally published in German in 1937 and was revived in translation in the seventies as a minor classic. But the question of the author’s identity had never been resolved. All anyone agreed on was that Kurban Said was the pen name of a writer who had probably come from Baku, an oil city in the Caucasus, and that he was either a nationalist poet who was killed in the Gulags, or the dilettante son of an oil millionaire, or a Viennese café-society writer who died in Italy after stabbing himself in the foot. In the jacket photograph of a book called Twelve Secrets of the Caucasus, the mysterious author is dressed up as a mountain warrior–wearing a fur cap, a long, flowing coat with a sewn-in bandolier, and a straight dagger at his waist. Mayer and I were on our way to a meeting with a lawyer named Heinz Barazon, who was challenging Overlook over proper author credit on the novel.

Barazon claimed to know the true identity of Kurban Said, and as the lawyer for the author’s heirs, he was insisting that it be acknowledged in the new edition of Ali and Nino or he would block publication. At the lawyer’s address, next to a shop where…