Gina B. Nahai

An epic tale blending Persian and Jewish cultures travels from the Tehran's Jewish ghetto, through Turkish whorehouses, to Los Angeles as Lili, with the help of Aunt Miriam the Moon, searches for her magical mother Roxanna the Angel. By the author of Cry of the Peacock. Reprint.

Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith

Returning to Appalachia to investigate the murder of his father, who was a notorious holy roller, Adam Watkins finds himself powerfully drawn to the suspect, a beautiful woman named Blue, who is rumored to be immune to earthly harm, in a intricately woven novel of love, passion, fundamentalism, and the price of extremism. Reprint.

A Novel

Sunday's Silence

A recreation of two hundred years of history of the Persian Jews follows four generations of Iranian Jews and their struggle for peace and freedom in the face of poverty, prejudice, war, and revolution, in a new paperback edition of the debut novel by the best-selling author of Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith. Reprint.

Cry Of The Peacock

Les Soleyman, famille juive chassée de Téhéran, pensent avoir enfin trouvé le répit en s’exilant à Los Angeles. Mais un démon de leur passé, connu sous le nom du Fils de Raphael, va venir les perturber. Enfant illégitime, son existence même est une ombre qui plane au-dessus de leur clan, et son arrivée en Californie fait frémir toute la communauté juive iranienne. Des années plus tard, le Fils de Raphael, devenu un important businessman, est retrouvé assassiné dans sa voiture. Son épouse délaissée, un Soleyman en quête de vengeance, des investisseurs escroqués, ou peut-être même son comptable et confident de toujours ? La liste des suspects n’en finit pas de s’allonger... Entre saga familiale et roman policier, culture persane et culture juive, drame et humour, Bons baisers de Téhéran explore la force des liens du sang et les cicatrices de l’exil. Un roman d‘une beauté brute et un regard fascinant sur la vie des juifs d’Iran en Amérique. Library Journal Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Pascale Haas.

Bons baisers de Téhéran

Longlisted for the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award Finalist for the Jewish Book Council's 2014 JJ Greenberg Memorial Award "Lyrical, shrewd, and daring novelist Nahai...writes with acute emotional and nearly anthropological perception, laser-wit, and deep compassion....With touches of magic realism, extraordinary characters, and a spiraling, multigenerational plot involving fraud, a murder mystery, epic suffering, heroic generosity, women's struggle for freedom, and the clash between East and West, Nahai's mythic, tragic, often beautiful immigrant family saga illuminates timeless questions of prejudice, trauma, inheritance, loyalty, and love." --Booklist, Starred review "A riveting tale....Readers will be well rewarded." --Publishers Weekly, Starred review "A wide-ranging, page-turning, magical realist, multigenerational family saga and Iranian-Jewish-American immigration tale enveloped in a murder mystery...it both entertains and instructs, and its differing genres seem more complimentary than conflicting." --New York Journal of Books "Nahai has crafted an engaging combination of family saga and murder mystery, placed it in the framework of a relatively unknown subculture, and people it with fascinating characters. Flavored with both elements of magical realism and down-to-earth observations, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. brings a little-known Los Angeles community to vivid life." --Shelf Awareness "What results is a novel that feels more universal than anything, and an engrossing, expansive epic that charts not only thousands years of Iranian Jewish life, but the brutality of one family's survival amidst revolution and cultural upheaval." --Kirkus Reviews, Feature on Gina B. Nahai "A bold, brave novel...as surprising as it is satisfying....Captivating." --Forbes "One of the many pleasures of this sprawling, multigenerational story is the way it transcends the specifics of the Iranian diaspora with insights that could apply to anyone." --LA Weekly "One of Nahai's gifts is her astute observation of this community, her own, which she describes with unsparing precision." --Los Angeles Review of Books "The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. is a masterpiece that is simultaneously poetic in its unfurling, trans-generational plot, and brutally to the point in the style of a hard-boiled crime novel...This is a book you should not miss." --San Francisco Book Review "Nahai's eye for detail, whether it's succinctly summing up a funeral or providing a description of a Tehran summer, always seems to be spot on." --PopMatters "An intriguing murder-mystery journey anchored within the Iranian-Jewish community of Los Angeles. Vivid and raw...Nahai masterfully introduces us to the mythical and mundane layers that make up Iranian-American identity." --Washington Independent Review of Books "This is irresistible storytelling...Nahai uses her estimable gifts to offer a nuanced, sometimes satirical portrait of the tight-knit Iranian-Jewish exile community in Los Angeles...It's a fascinating read." --BookPage From Tehran to Los Angeles, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. is a sweeping saga that tells the story of the Soleymans, an Iranian Jewish family tormented for decades by Raphael's Son, a crafty and unscrupulous financier who has futilely claimed to be an heir to the family's fortune. Forty years later in contemporary Los Angeles, Raphael's Son has nearly achieved his goal--until he suddenly disappears, presumed by many to have been murdered. The possible suspects are legion: his long-suffering wife; numerous members of the Soleyman clan exacting revenge; the scores of investors he bankrupted in a Ponzi scheme; or perhaps even his disgruntled bookkeeper and longtime confidant. Award-winning novelist Gina B. Nahai pulls back the curtain on a close-knit community that survived centuries of persecution in Iran before settling and thriving in the United States, but now finds itself divided to the core by one of its own members. By turns hilarious and affecting, The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. examines the eternal bonds of family and community, and the lasting scars of exile.

The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.

From the best-selling author of 'Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith', a stirring, lyrical tale that offers American readers unique insight into the inner workings of Iranian society. In the decade before the Islamic Revolution, Iran is a country on the brink of explosion. Twelve-year-old Yaas is born into an already divided family: Her father is the son of wealthy Iranian Jews who are integrated into the country’s upper-class, mostly Muslim elite; her mother was raised in the slums of South Tehran, one street away from the old Jewish ghetto. Yaas spends her childhood navigating the many layers of Iranian society. Her task, already difficult because of the disparity in her parents’ worldview, becomes all the more critical when her father falls in love with a beautiful woman from a noble Muslim family. As her parents’ marriage begins to crumble and the country moves ever closer to revolution, Yaas is plagued by a mysterious and terrifying illness. But despite her ailment, when she learns that her father is about to abandon her and her mother — to immigrate to America with his mistress — Yaas is determined to save herself and her family. At once a cultural exploration of an as-yet-unfamiliar society and a psychological study of the effects of loss, Caspian Rain takes the reader inside the tragic and fascinating world of a brave young girl struggling against impossible odds.

Caspian Rain

Una saga familiare fra Los Angeles e Teheran, fra l’Iran più misterioso ed esoterico e un’America che sempre meno appare come una terra promessa. Una storia nera di vendetta e superstizione che ci trasporta dai vicoli del bazar e dai palazzi orientali di Teheran alle autostrade e alle ville hollywoodiane di Los Angeles. Il romanzo è la saga famigliare dei Suleyman, una famiglia di ricchi commercianti ebrei di Teheran costretta a emigrare in America dopo la rivoluzione khomeinista. È soprattutto la storia di una incredibile persecuzione della famiglia da parte di una donna, la Strega nera, decisa a far riconoscere il proprio figlio bastardo come erede del ricco patrimonio dei Suleyman. La Strega nera appare improvvisamente un giorno nella villa dei Suleyman proveniente dai sobborghi più miseri di Teheran e sostiene che il suo bambino è frutto della sua relazione con il primogenito dei Suleyman, Raphael, un uomo con problemi di salute mentale. Proprio per questa incapacità di Raphael, il patriarca dei Suleyman aveva già affidato le redini della florida attività economica famigliare al suo secondogenito. Manda dunque via di casa la donna senza ascoltarla. Inizia a questo punto una lotta feroce tra la Strega nera e poi suo figlio da una parte e il resto dei Suleyman dall’altra, una battaglia che s’incrocerà con gli scontri della rivoluzione khomeinista e le persecuzioni dei fondamentalisti e proseguirà fino in America, dove i sopravvissuti della famiglia Suleyman si ritroveranno a scontrarsi. Il “figlio di Raphael” (e della Strega nera) diventerà un potente finanziere che attraverso truffe e raggiri proseguirà la sua feroce vendetta contro le donne della famiglia Suleyman, le uniche sopravvissute della dinastia. Un’avvincente saga tra due continenti e due universi culturalmente opposti.

Gina B. Nahai

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