One is that the April 20, 1937, working title of the novel was The Dying Orient, and her father and aunt (the Baron and Baroness Ehrenfels) had previously written an article together entitled "The Dying Istanbul." Another is that the Ehrenfels made a film entitled The Great Longing, which is "about a man who is disappointed with the world. And he is looking for true love or truth." (The unspoken implication may be that this is similar to Ali and Nino.) Third, Baron Omar Rolf von Ehrenfels set up the "Orient Bund" for Muslim students in Berlin "in order to bring Europeans and Muslims closer together." Leela Ehrenfels and Mireille Ehrenfels-Abeille have also said it is possible that Elfriede had an affair with Lev Nussimbaum. Fourth, according to the April 20, 1937, contract with E.P. Tal & Co., Baroness Elfriede was the author behind the pseudonym Kurban Said, and Leela has said, "that makes it obvious to me that she wrote both books. But it is possible that Essad Bey supplied some of the material. And that there are certain parts on which they worked together." Fifth, Leela Ehrenfels cites a September 14, 1938, letter from "Essad Bey" to Baroness Ehrenfels, written in Positano, Italy, in which he again refers to her as "Mrs. Kurban Said" and congratulates her on something unmentioned – Leela Ehrenfels interprets this as a reference to The Girl From the Golden Horn. In the 2004 film Alias Kurban Said, the Baroness Mireille Ehrenfels-Abeille said that Elfriede Ehrenfels "never" said "a single word" regarding Ali and Nino'' when she knew her after returning to Austria in 1960 from a long stay in India, explaining that "it was a different world, that had come to an end." In a 1999 interview with Tom Reiss, however, Baroness Ehrenfels-Abeille recounted that, in Reiss's description, "sometime in the early 1970s the baroness remembers getting the first inkling that Elfriede had once been Kurban Said." Baron Omar-Rolf Ehrenfels's sister Imma informed Baroness Mireille Ehrenfels-Abeille that she had, the baroness told Reiss, "received a funny letter, some doctor wanted to know if I’d written a book call[ed] Ali and Nino." Mireille asked Elfriede about it, and Elfriede said, "Naturally, Immi does not need to know everything. Yes, I produced it." The word "produced" is left ambiguous. References Bibliography Further reading External links Essad Bey Truth Alert - Keeping Records Straight Reading Group