Novels
The Luminous Heart of Jonah S.
The Luminous Heart of Jonah S. is an eye-opening depiction of Iranian Jews in exile in America. From the very beginning, this immigrant community has generated controversy. In Los Angeles, where there are more Iranian Jews than anywhere else in the world, including Iran, they are largely viewed as insular, enigmatic, and reluctant to integrate.
Caspian Rain
In the decade before the Islamic Revolution, Iran is a country at the brink of explosion. Twelve-year-old Yaas is born in Tehran, 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.
Sunday’s Silence
How different is Iran from Appalachia? Iranian-born writer Nahai’s first two novels, Cry of the Peacock and Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith, were set in her native land, to great effect and rave reviews. Now, in a thoughtfully executed third novel, Nahai takes on Appalachia, illuminating another region whose people are united by a fundamentalist faith, their beliefs as exotic to, and misunderstood by, most Western readers as those of the people of Iran.
Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith
The first voice we hear in Gina B. Nahai’s second novel is that of Lili, the grown daughter of a miraculous mother. When Lili was 5 and living in the Jewish ghetto of Tehran, her mother, Roxanna, “had grown wings, one night when the darkness was the color of her dreams, and flown into the star-studded night of Iran that claimed her.”
Cry of the Peacock
From Publishers Weekly Nahai begins her vivid, intriguing historical chronicle in the 1780s in Persia and concludes 200 years later in contemporary Iran. Following a family of Jews through seven generations, from Juyy Bar, the Jewish ghetto of Esfahan, to America, she begins with Esther the Soothsayer. Versed in magic and witchcraft Esther can foretell the future. She appears in the dreams and visions of her progeny, including her granddaughter, Peacock, born in the late 1860s, whose life spans well over a century.