Novel · A way to begin
Ali and Nino
Əli və Nino
Kurban Said · 1937
Synopsis
Ali Khan Shirvanshir, a Muslim schoolboy from an old family of Baku, has loved Nino Kipiani, a Christian Georgian, since childhood. The narrative, which he tells himself, follows their love from 1914 to 1920, when the city passes from the Russian empire to the Azerbaijani republic. Nino is abducted by the Armenian Nakhararian; Ali kills him and has to hide in Dagestan, then the couple, married against convention, return to Baku before taking refuge in Tehran, where Nino suffers from life in the harem. Between them pass the East and the West, Islam and Christendom.
Context
The novel appeared in Vienna in 1937 from E. P. Tal, in German. Jenia Graman, who had found a copy on a stall in Berlin, translated it into English, and Random House published it in 1970; the French translation by Germaine de Tonnac-Villeneuve, made from the English, appeared from Robert Laffont in 1973, before that of Michel-François Demet, with a preface by Tom Reiss, from NiL in 2002. Translated into more than thirty languages, it has been regarded since its rediscovery in the seventies as the national novel of Azerbaijan, where a first translation appeared in 1972. The debate over its author was the subject of a special issue of Azerbaijan International in 2011.
Who it is for
A love and adventure novel, easy to read, translated into French; its portrait of Baku before the First World War is its main value.
Prizes and reception
More than a hundred editions and reprints worldwide; it is regarded as a masterpiece.
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