Love and Politics: Retelling History in Ali and Nino and Artush and Zaur Daniel Schreiner, University of Bonn In memory of Rafiq Taği who was killed on the 23 rd of November, 2011 Since Ali and Nino was written in German and for a German audience attracted by exotic and oriental settings, Said Kurban’s book became well known in Western Europe. It took a much longer time for the book to get its place within the Azerbaijani 1 canon of literature. Due to the international success of Ali and Nino, the book’s reputation expanded in the eyes of Azerbaijani readers, so that for them the book is now increasingly seen as the country’s gift to world literature. Although elements of the story are influenced by classical Azeri and Persian literature such as Nizami’s Leyla and Majnun, 2 the book and its author differ from other Azerbaijani prose and writers. 1 In contemporary Azerbaijan, the term Azerbaijani includes all citizens of Azerbaijan, such as Lezgins, Russians, Armenians, Talysh, Tats, Avars, Georgians, and Ashkenazi Jews. The term Azeri refers to the Azeri-Turkish majority. 2 See Nizami, The Story of Layla & Majnun, trans. R. Gelpke a.o. (New Lebanon, NY: Omega Publications, 1996). The tragic love story of Leila and Majnun can be found in different versions throughout the Muslim world. The Persian original dates back to the work of Nizami in the seventh century and hence has to be situated far earlier in the tradition of the unhappy love story than Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. The Azeri version was written by