'Ali and Nino': A World War I love story

Kurban Said's tale of star-crossed lovers is set in Azerbaijan, itself a star-crossed land.

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For the final Bookworm post of 2023, I’m delighted to say I made it all the way through the A countries in the first year of my global literary tour. I thought I’d be farther along in the alphabet, but readily admit to having taken many detours along the way. No regrets.

The book I chose to represent Azerbaijan was “Ali and Nino,” a novel of love during wartime that’s been published in more than 30 languages. The author is identified as Kurban Said, which is believed to be a pseudonym for Lev Nussimbaum.

Whoever Said is, this is a romance that makes “Romeo and Juliet” seem like a kindergarten crush. Ali is a Muslim boy from a prominent, revered Azerbaijani family, while Nino is a Christian girl from a noble family with roots in neighboring Georgia. They meet as children in school and grow up well aware that any relationship beyond friendship will test their identities, which both of them take great pride in.

Their romance is inextricably intertwined with Azerbaijani’s history as a crossroads between East and West, bordered by Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Iran in the region known as the Caucasus. At one point, as the young lovers sit with a friend, one of them remarks on this fraught history:

Here we are, representatives of the three greatest Caucasian people: a Georgian, a Mohammedan, an Armenian. Born under the same sky, by the same earth, different and yet the same, like God’s Trinity. European, and yet Asiatic, receiving from East and West, and giving to both.

Just as Ali and Nino reach adulthood and commit fully to each other, World War I and the Russian Revolution break out. The stakes are particularly high for Azerbaijan:

There is a high wall between us and the Russians. That wall is the Caucasus. If the Russians win our country will become completely russified. We will lose our churches, our language, our identity. We will become European-Asiatic bastards, instead of forming the bridge between the two worlds.

I wish I knew who translated the edition of “Ali and Nino” that I read. It’s richly evocative in its descriptions of geography, social mores, garb, food, poetry and much more. All that detail lends heft to Ali and Nino’s personal Caucasus, the wall that stands firmly between them even as they keep trying to scale it with their love. She makes an effort to comply with his standards for how a proper Muslim wife should behave, but when she visits her family on her own, he knows she reverts to her Christian ways. He gives her full rein to entertain British guests in the manner to which they’re accustomed, but he grits his teeth through every second of it.

Ali initially intends to sit out the war, but he finds its gravitational pull increasing.

I became enthusiastic about the transformation of our country. The unaccustomed feeling of political independence stirred me profoundly, and I loved the new coat of arms, the uniforms and laws. For the first time in my life I was really at home in my own country.

But Nino notes his increasing nationalism with dismay.

I looked where he pointed and saw a native beating his breast and whipping his back amongst all those madmen. And that native was you, Ali Khan! I was ashamed, ashamed to death to be the wife of a fanatical barbarian.

Can this marriage survive the crush of so much historical weight?

Programming note: You’ll see a new Bookworm in the new year. I’m moving from weekly to monthly publication. And rather than focusing on a single book, I’ll be recapping a month’s worth of literary exploration. My hope is that this new format will present to you a wider range of interesting books (and go easier on your inboxes). So, you’ll receive your next edition of Bookworm on Jan. 31.

I hope you’ve enjoyed following along in 2023. Happy New Year, and here’s to more great reads in 2024!