Ali and Nino

Questions About Ali and Nino

by Kurban Said

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Answered Questions (3)

is this story a happy ending?
Rahib Gojayev This book is worth to read it until the very last word!
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Does anyone have any Ali and Nino book club questions?
Sara
1) What is love? Is it the simple fact that your world is someone else?
2) Should we keep our tradition to eat with hands or instead eat with knives an…more
1) What is love? Is it the simple fact that your world is someone else?
2) Should we keep our tradition to eat with hands or instead eat with knives and forks?
3) Should we drink wine, like the western people, or should we follow the Islamic rule of abstaining from it? And what about pork then?
4) How can Ali and Nino's inter-religious relationship survive in such a chaotic political climate, in the midst of Europe's and Asia's boundary?
5) What use is a school when what is taught there is nonsense?
6) What use is a hospital if it is the body alone that is healed there, and the soul is forgotten?
7) Would Muslims really have referred to themselves as “Mohammedans,” even 100 years ago?
8) Why did the author not include the Armenian genocide?
9) How are the oppressions of religion so tied up with economic and political power?
10) Does it deserve its place as a "masterpiece" of 20th century literature?
11) Are blood-feuds seriously a thing?
12) An eye for an eye is in the Quran but isn't forgiveness also considered honorable in the same text?
13) Is this book sexist?
14) What's worth saving? A one's love for his woman or for his country?
15) Does the book have its perks of not sexualizing a woman when she is being described?
16) Why does Ali love Baku so much? Why does he prefer to be an Asian rather than a European?
17) Set on the eve of war, Ali and Nino is an intimate love story impinged upon by vast historical and political forces. In what ways do these forces threaten and ultimately destroy their happiness?
18) How is their romance intensified by the chaotic period in which they live?
19) Is there any sense in which Ali and Nino are fortunately placed in time and circumstance?
20) How would their lives have been different had they lived in Persia, for example, rather than Azerbeidshan?
21) Do you think attitudes toward women in Islamic countries have changed much during the sixty years since the novel was published?
22) Why does Nachararyan "kidnap" Nino? Why is it significant that he wishes to marry her in Moscow and then take her to Sweden?
23) What is the symbolic value of Nachararyan fleeing in a car and Ali chasing him on a horse? Of the way Ali kills him?
24) What larger trust has been betrayed by Nachararyan's treachery?
25) In what sense is their love made of something more fundamental than customs and cultural expectations? In what sense does it exist outside the realm of time?
26) Why does Ali decide not to fight for the Czar against the Germans? How is this decision first received?
27) In what ways does Ali more accurately perceive the future of the region--and his own role in it--than his friends who fight for the Czar?
28) In many ways Baku, with its multi-ethnic population, is a metaphorical marriage of East and West, Asia and Europe, tradition and modernity. How does Ali and Nino's literal marriage bring these cultural oppositions into union?
29) What tensions arise because of their different backgrounds and desires? How do they resolve these tensions?
30) Why is Ali swept up in the religious procession of flagellants and dervishes in Persia? What state is he trying to achieve?
31) How is Nino forced to behave in Persia? How is her character more fully revealed in these constricted circumstances?
32) From whom does she exact a measure of revenge?
33) In what ways is it important for the novel to show us this world?
34) Why do you think Ali chooses to stay and defend the short-lived Republic of Azerbeidshan, even though he knows it is doomed, rather than flee to Paris with Nino and their child?
35) What is the emotional effect of the novel's ending?
36) In what ways does reading Ali and Nino deepen your understanding of recent conflicts in the region involving former Soviet Republic and Muslim minorities?
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Would people who have read this class it as a 'young adult' read? What would you say is its 'interest age'? From ? to adult... I'm thinking of adding a second hand copy I acquired last week to the school library which I run.
Elisabeth W It's not aimed at young adults, but I'm sure older teens would enjoy it. There's some violence and sexuality. But nothing too graphic.…moreIt's not aimed at young adults, but I'm sure older teens would enjoy it. There's some violence and sexuality. But nothing too graphic.(less)
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