Beyond the Book: Background information when reading The Orientalist

Beyond the Book

This article relates to The Orientalist

The story of Lev Nussimbaum's life starts in Baku, the capital of Azeraijan at the turn of the 20th century.

Thanks to the joys of the internet you too can travel to Baku by browsing the local English language newspaper, the Baku Sun, which includes a guide to the city and even what's on the TV today. Isn't the web a wonderful thing! 

Ali and Nino (1938) and The Girl From The Golden Horn  (1939) by Said Kurban (aka Lev Nussimbaum) are both available at Amazon. Writing as Essad Bey, Naussimbaum is also believed to be the author of Blood and Oil in the Orient (1929), Stalin, the Career of a Fanatic (1931), and various other titles.

Interesting Fact from the Q&A with the author
Hitler's first press secretary, Putzi Hanfstangl, was a Harvard man (class of '04). In his memoirs, he describes how Hitler would go wild with excitement when he played the football marches and recounted the hysteria that the pep rallies could whip up in the stadium. Putzi claims that the Nazi's "Sieg Heil!" was inspired by Harvard's "Fight Harvard! Fight! Fight! Fight!" chant.  (more)

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This article relates to The Orientalist. It first ran in the March 20, 2006 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.