The claim that Lev Nussimbaum was the novel's author began circulating in 1944, when an Italian translation of the novel appeared, listing the author listed as "Mohammed Essad Bey." Tom Reiss notes this as "a first posthumous restoration" of Nussimbaum's authorship. (Of course, this Italian edition was brought to press by Dr. Ahmed Giamil Vacca-Mazzara (né Bello Vacca), who claimed himself to be Kurban Said and denied that Essad Bey was a Jew named Lev Nussimbaum.). When the novel was translated into English by Jenia Graman and published by Random House in 1970, John Wain, the author of the introduction, described the figure behind the name Kurban Said, without naming him, as having the biographical attributes of Nussimbaum. Assertions that Nussimbaum was the author were occasionally repeated thereafter.