The Orientalist

In Search of a Man caught between East and West

Tom Reiss

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English

Vintage
01 September 2006

Biography; Biography: historical, political & military; Biography: literary; Literary studies: from c 1900 -; Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers; General & world history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000; Jewish studies

An extraordinary and hugely topical story of a Jewish man's passion for the Arab world, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize.

The Orientalist unravels the mysterious life of a man born on the border between West and East, a Jewish man with a passion for the Arab world.

Tom Reiss first came across the man who called himself 'Kurban Said' when he went to the ex-USSR to research the oil business on the Caspian Sea, 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 its supposed author? And why was he so forgotten that no one could agree on the simplest facts about him?

For five years, Reiss tracked Lev Nussimbaum, alias Kurban Said, from a wealthy Jewish childhood in Baku, to a romantic adolescence in Persia on the run from the Bolsheviks, and an exile in Berlin as bestselling author and self-proclaimed Muslim prince. The result is a thoroughly unexpected picture of the twentieth-century - of the origins of our ideas about race and religious self-definition, and of the roots of modern fanaticism.

By: Tom Reiss
Imprint: Vintage
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: New edition
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 330g
ISBN: 9780099483779
ISBN 10: 0099483777
Pages: 464
Publication Date: 01 September 2006
Recommended Age: From 0 years
Audience: General/trade , Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , ELT Advanced , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Tom Reiss has written about politics and culture in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, and elsewhere. He lives in New York.

Reviews for The Orientalist: In Search of a Man caught between East and West

Wonderfully compelling... Deeply moving Sunday Times 20050626 A wonderous tale, beautifully told...mesmerising, poignant and almost incredible New York Times Meticulous and fascinating... Inspiring reading Spectator Extraordinary on many counts... It has taken the tireless detective work of Tom Reiss to uncover the real Lev Nussimbaum Sunday Times A highly entertaining biography of a very unusual person Literary Review