The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous LifePart history, part cultural biography, and part literary mystery, The Orientalist traces the life of Lev Nussimbaum, a Jew who transformed himself into a Muslim prince and became a best-selling author in Nazi Germany. Born in 1905 to a wealthy family in the oil-boom city of Baku, at the edge of the czarist empire, Lev escaped the Russian Revolution in a camel caravan. He found refuge in Germany, where, writing under the names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, his remarkable books about Islam, desert adventures, and global revolution, became celebrated across fascist Europe. His enduring masterpiece, Ali and Nino–a story of love across ethnic and religious boundaries, published on the eve of the Holocaust–is still in print today. But Lev’s life grew wilder than his wildest stories. He married an international heiress who had no idea of his true identity–until she divorced him in a tabloid scandal. His closest friend in New York, George Sylvester Viereck–also a friend of both Freud’s and Einstein’s–was arrested as the leading Nazi agent in the United States. Lev was invited to be Mussolini’s official biographer–until the Fascists discovered his “true” identity. Under house arrest in the Amalfi cliff town of Positano, Lev wrote his last book–discovered in a half a dozen notebooks never before read by anyone–helped by a mysterious half-German salon hostess, an Algerian weapons-smuggler, and the poet Ezra Pound. Tom Reiss spent five years tracking down secret police records, love letters, diaries, and the deathbed notebooks. Beginning with a yearlong investigation for The New Yorker, he pursued Lev’s story across ten countries and found himself caught up in encounters as dramatic and surreal, and sometimes as heartbreaking, as his subject’s life. Reiss’s quest for the truth buffets him from one weird character to the next: from the last heir of the Ottoman throne to a rock opera-composing baroness in an Austrian castle, to an aging starlet in a Hollywood bungalow full of cats and turtles. As he tracks down the pieces of Lev Nussimbaum’s deliberately obscured life, Reiss discovers a series of shadowy worlds–of European pan-Islamists, nihilist assassins, anti-Nazi book smugglers, Baku oil barons, Jewish Orientalists–that have also been forgotten. 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 and terrorism. Written with grace and infused with wonder, The Orientalist is an astonishing book. |
Was andere dazu sagen - Rezension schreiben
THE ORIENTALIST: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
Nutzerbericht - KirkusThe intriguing search for the true identity of a 1930s cult novelist (published here, by Random, in 1971) whose obscure working life was based entirely on escapist subterfuge.Readers who wonder why ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
The Orientalist: solving the mystery of a strange and dangerous life
Nutzerbericht - Not Available - Book VerdictThe 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 ... Vollständige Rezension lesen
Inhalt
Revolution | 3 |
Wild Jews | 31 |
The Way East CHAPTER | 47 |
Escape | 75 |
CHAPTER S Constantinople 1921 | 105 |
Minarets and Silk Stockings | 123 |
PART 2 | 143 |
PART 3 | 148 |
Jewish Orientalism | 227 |
Backing into the Inferno | 243 |
A Tough Morsel for the Melting Pot | 273 |
Mussolini and Mrs Kurban Said | 293 |
Positano | 321 |
Notes | 343 |
Selected BIBLIOGRAPHY | 385 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 413 |
The Berlin Wall | 169 |
A Hundred Kinds of Hunger | 187 |
Weimar Media Star | 203 |
PERMISSIONS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 415 |
| 417 | |
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life Tom Reiss Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2006 |
The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life Tom Reiss Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2005 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
Abraham American anti-Semitic Army Baku became become began believed Berlin Blood and Oil Bolsheviks called Caucasus century culture early East émigrés Empire Essad Bey Europe European exiles fact Fascist father felt fighting forces foreign Freikorps friends German girls hand Hitler hundred Ibid idea Islam Italian Italy Jewish Jews kind knew Kurban land late later Letter Lev's liberal living looked March mother moved murder Muslim Nazi never novel Nussimbaum officers once Orient Ottoman Paris party Persian Pima police political published recalled revolutionary Russian secret seemed Social soon Soviet story streets things thought told took traveled Turkish Turks turned Viereck wanted West White women writing wrote York young