Some scholars of Azerbaijani literature and culture, after being exposed to Blair's arguments, continue to express doubts about the possibility that Chamanzaminli is the novel’s author. Hamlet Isakhanli oglu Isayev, who chaired a December 2010 meeting in which Blair presented her findings, remarked that the findings "left many questions unanswered." Others have offered more specific criticisms. Leah Feldman, the 2010 recipient of the Heydar Aliyev award for scholarship on Azerbaijan, presented by the Consulate General of Azerbaijan and a research associate at Princeton University’s Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies, who studies Orientalism and Azerbaijani literature, attended one of Blair’s presentations at the Writers' Union in Baku in December 2010. Feldman has characterized Betty Blair's approach as based on a "theory of authorship as autobiography," explaining that "Blair’s argument indicates that what she calls the 'core author' of "Ali and Nino" is not the man who penned the text (Essad Bey/Lev Nussimbaum) but rather the individual whose life and ideas are most readily expressed by the protagonists." Feldman's assessment of the novel leans toward Nussimbaum as author. "To me," she has written, "the novel read as an Orientalist piece." As an "Orientalist" novel, it would represent a primarily European point of view regarding Azerbaijan. Mandaville's assessment of "Ali and Nino" also favors Nussimbaum's authorship. Referring to the fact that Nussimbaum was of the Azerbaijani Jewish minority while Chamanzaminli was part of the Muslim majority, Mandaville writes that "the most interesting thing about the novel is the intense love/hate super-nostalgic relationship expressed for the region – exactly the kind of thing a person who was a (minority) child in an area they are now exiled from would write."