Tom Reiss (New York, 1964) is a journalist and regularly writes in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the New Yorker, among others. It was in 1998, during a trip to Azerbaijan, when he discovered Kurban Said and his masterpiece, Ali and Nino. Thus began more than five years of research, during which he traveled through a dozen countries to find out the mystery that has surrounded this author of multiple identities since 1942, to which he devoted his extraordinary book The Orientalist: "As if following the steps of In search of Baron Corvo, Tom Reiss investigates and reconstructs the fascinating life of an eccentric of literature "(Ponç Puigdevall, Presència); "Do not stop reading this unusual and masterful work. They will thank me as long as they live "(Juan Manuel de Prada, ABC); "Fascinating, wonderful detective biography" (Jacinto Antón, El País); "This magnificent biography, The Orientalist, which in spite of its extension and density is read with the eagerness of an intelligent novel of adventures in a changing historical climate accurately described. The narrative of his life, reconstructed with unquestionable artisanal talent by Tom Reiss, dazzles as the great fictions usually do in the hands of solvent creators "(Robert Saladrigas, La Vanguardia); "The Orientalist is also a cultural biography of Europe that goes back to a few centuries before the birth of its enigmatic and protracted protagonist" (J. Ernesto Ayala-Dip, The Spanish Post).