Nahid Rachlin

Every book I've read by Nahid Rachlin (and as one of her editors, I've even read a couple books yet to be published) transports me completely. I don't know if all these years of reading and editing and analyzing manuscripts has made it more difficult for me to be transported by fiction. Perhaps. But with Nahid Rachlin, I know that it's due to the sheer beauty of her prose, the coolness, the clarity of her craftsmanship, the understated emotions, and her spectacular eye for detail. The pomegranate trees, with fruit bursting on the branch to reveal jewel-like seeds. The gurgling waters of the joob. The fresh fruit in the bazaars piled high--glistening grapes, fresh dates, persimmons. Better than any other writer writing about Iran, or even any country in the region, Rachlin brings the everyday Iranian's experience to light--men and women. V.S. Naipul said of this book that it's brilliant because it's not overtly political--politics are not even mentioned--and that Rachlin's understated prose provides the more powerful political statement.

On the face of it, this is a story of a women in transition, pulled to her homeland at a time of personal flux. She's moved to the United States, where she has a successful career as a biologist and is married to an American man who seems distant, changeable, cold. She realizes, while visiting her father and his second wife, that her mother hadn't just disappeared, as he'd always told her. Instead, she'd left the family for another man. Feri, the main character, eventually finds her mother in another town, and it's this meeting that proves to be the catalyst for the rest of the novel.

But this is almost beside the point. It's rare to find a writer these days who writes "quietly"--who doesn't feel the need to cartwheel across the page, tap-dance through chapters, engage in a continual performance aimed at keeping the reader's interest. In Foreigner, and in all of Nahid Rachlin's other work, the deep sense of place (and a true sense of Iran) and the elegant portrayal of women, in particular, haunts your days and nights in the most pleasant way imaginable.… (altro)

Well written, good and entertaining for readers of non-fiction. The story of a Persian woman born and raised in Iran who fights to become independent, understanding she must leave her home and family to do so. She spends her early childhood raised by an aunt, only to be torn away at the age of nine by her father so he can 'guide her'. She is exposed to outside influences in school and by banned books she reads. Finally her father allows her to leave Iran to study (at a woman's college where majors include home-economics). She totally breaks away to remain in America after finishing her degree, where she travels alone to New York. She marries and has a family, but cannot completly leave behind her old life.… (altro)

An Iranian family embroiled in Islamic revolution, the hostage crisis, incest, and exile in America

Forced to flee the country with their parents as Khomeini rises to power, Nora and Jahan Ellahi rise to the challenge of anti-Iranian hostility in America. Breaking free from their intense attachment to each other, they explore new relationships to forge independent lives. The romantic artist Jahan ultimately returns to join the army to fight Iraq, while ambitious Nora finds a life of greater opportunity and personal freedom in the U.S.

“If, as Aristotle reminds us, we are our desire, then who are we if the object of our desire is forbidden? What becomes of us if we are born in one world yet long for another? These are just two of the complex and difficult questions Nahid Rachlin explores and ultimately illuminates in this brave, engrossing, and timely novel. I recommend it highly!” – Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog

"Jumping Over Fire is a political novel with a strong dose of Wuthering Heights blended into it . . . potent subject matter . . ." – The Seattle Times… (altro)