Combining the exotic fascination of a tale told by Scheherazade with the range and magnificence of an epic, Ali and Nino is a timeless classic of love in the face of war. Ultimately the lovers are drawn back to Baku, but when war threatens their future, Ali is forced to choose between his loyalty to the beliefs of his Asian ancestors and his profound devotion to Nino. To be together they must overcome blood feud and scandal, attempt a daring horseback rescue, and travel from the bustling street of oil-boom Baku, through starkly beautiful deserts and remote mountain villages, to the opulent palace of Ali's uncle in neighboring Persia. Ali Khan Shirvanshir, a Muslim schoolboy from a proud, aristocratic family, has fallen in love with the beautiful and enigmatic Nino Kipiani, a Christian girl with distinctly European sensibilities.

It is the eve of World War I in Baku, Azerbaijan, a city on the edge of the Caspian Sea, poised precariously between east and west. It is a captivating novel as evocative of the exotic desert landscape as it is of the passion between two people pulled apart by culture, religion, and war. The love story begins in the city of Baku in the Caucasus, a region with a checkerboard of over fifty ethnicities, among them Armenians, Azeri. Out of print for nearly three decades until the hardcover re-release last year, Ali and Nino is Kurban Said's masterpiece. Lev Nussimbaumalias Essad Bey, alias Kurban Saidsituated the eponymous hero and heroine of his 1937 novel,Ali and Nino, at linguistic, geographic, national, religious, and cultural crossroads. Its mysterious author was recently the subject of a feature article in the New Yorker, which has inspired a forthcoming biography. First published in Vienna in 1937, this classic story of romance and adventure has been compared to Dr. Ali and Nino by Kurban Said is a tragic love story set in Russian-ruled Caucasia and Persia at the time of World War I. As is true of all great literature, Kurban Saids Ali and Nino has timeless appeal.

Ali and nino by kurban said