The Orientalist

January 1, 2005
The Orientalist of this detailed biography is Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who became a Muslim prince. Reiss (Fuhrer-Ex) was able to flesh out Nussimbaum's mysterious life after discovering a cache of unpublished letters he wrote to a friend. He was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, in 1905 to a Jewish oil baron father and a Bolshevist mother who committed suicide when Nussimbaum was still a child. The Soviet takeover of Baku's oilfields sent him and his father fleeing into the Persian deserts, and thus began his lifelong infatuation with the Middle East and eventual conversion to Islam. He was a nomadic soul whose only constant was his gift as a writer. By the late 1920s, he had become a best-selling author in Weimar Germany under the pseudonyms Essad Bey and Kurban Said (his works of fiction and nonfiction are still considered minor classics), but he was forced to flee when Hitler gained power and died in Italy in 1938. Unfortunately, Reiss gets bogged down in tangential details while trying to place Nussimbaum in early 20th-century context, but this is still an important work that sheds light on the pre-Zionist phenomenon of Jewish Orientalism that led many Jews to embrace Muslim culture. Recommended for academic and public libraries with strong 20th-century literature or history collections. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/04.]-Jim Doyle, Sara Hightower Regional Lib., Rome, GA

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 15, 2004
Lev Nussimbaum fabricated a life that in its brief arc encompassed the whole of the Western and Near Eastern culture of his time. A Jew from the Caucasus, born in the first throes of the Russian Revolution, he styled himself a Muslim prince. As Kurban Said, he wrote a best-selling novel that made him the toast of Nazi Germany. Inventing and reinventing himself, he left a confused and perplexing trail. Reiss pursues two great narratives, one recounting Nussimbaum's life itself, the other following the author's quest to ferret from among myths and outright lies the truth of this man's life. Along the way, readers absorb much about oil-rich Azerbaijan, the Russian Revolution, the rise of fascism, and the centuries-old clashes of cultures and religions in the Caucasus and Middle East. Digressions abound because of Nussimbaum's intricate, multicultural encounters. In the hands of a less adept writer, such complex history might grow opaque and tedious, but Reiss' storytelling flair and the utterly compelling character of Lev Nussimbaum turn this biography into a page-turner of epic proportion.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2004, American Library Association.)