Kurban said biography of mahatma

Who the heck is Kurban Said?

Friday is my non-teaching day, so I went down to Montclair to check out what I think is the nearest used bookstore to my current apartment. It's called the Montclair Book Center, and it turns out it's pretty good -- three floors, two storefronts, new and used books, and surprisingly well organized.

Among other things, I came across two novels by a writer I'd never heard of, Kurban Said.

Kurban said biography of mahatma

Kurban said biography of mahatma

Kurban said biography of mahatma gandhi

Ali and Nino - Wikipedia

Biography of mahatma gandhi

Amardeep Singh: The Strange Case of "Kurban Said"

Reading through Paul Theroux's afterword to Ali and Nino, I saw this:

But how had this Central Asian come to write his book in German and publish it in Berlin? Was he an exile, and if so, was this a pen name?

It turns out that it was indeed a pen name, possibly shared by two people, one an Austrian baroness, Elfriede Ehrenfels, and the other an emigre Jew from Azerbaijan, Lev Nussimbaum, who had converted to Islam and taken the name Essad Bey and lived in Berlin and Vienna.

Ok, wow.

Now that's a backstory! Elsewhere, Theroux makes it clear that he believes Nussimb