Point of View

Ali and Nino is told in the first person, past tense, by Ali Khan Shirvanshir. It begins with a quick summary of life in the Russian school and concentrates on Nino Kipiani being the most beautiful girl in the world. The odd comment in passing that, "All this had been five years ago," is the first hint that the novel is a written document of some sort rather than simply reminiscences.

This fact is revealed rather late in the novel, when Ali is given writing materials by a would-be journalist, eager to learn Ali's inner thoughts as a war hero. Instead, Ali begins his recording his story. Final confirmation comes only in the touching postscript added by his boyhood friend, Iljas Beg, who retrieves the notebook from Ali's dead body as he prepares him for burial.

The notebooks is not, strictly speaking a diary, because Ali...