Ali and Nino
In 1944 – two years after Essad Bey's death – it was Vacca who arranged for the translation of "Ali and Nino" into Italian for the first time. However, although he had already identified the title as "Ali and Nino" in the obituary tribute that he had written for Essad Bey in 1942; in the 1944 edition of the novel, Vacca changed the title to "Ali Khan" and identified the author as "M. Essad Bey," instead of "Kurban Said." After all, he himself claimed to be Kurban Said. Vacca introduced further changes in the Ali Khan novel, most prominently, the name of Ali's true love "Nino Kipiani" and whose name had been part of the original title of the novel ("Ali and Nino") became "Erica Kipiani", based upon the name of Lev Nussimbaum's estranged wife, Erika Loewendahl, who had left him in 1937 to marry Rene Fulop-Miller.