The Golem and the Jinni

Description

“An intoxicating fusion of fantasy and historical fiction. . . . Wecker’s storytelling skills dazzle.” –Entertainment Weekly

A marvelous and absorbing debut historical fantasy novel about a chance meeting between two supernatural creatures in turn-of-the-century immigrant New York.

Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay by a disgraced rabbi knowledgeable in the ways of dark Kabbalistic magic. She serves as the wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea on the voyage to America. As the ship arrives in New York in 1899, Chava is unmoored and adrift until a rabbi on the Lower East Side recognizes her for the creature she is and takes her in.

Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped centuries ago in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. Released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop, Ahmad appears in human form but is still not free. An iron band around his wrist binds him to the wizard and to the physical world.

Chava and Ahmad meet accidentally and become friends and soul mates–unlikely souls connected despite their opposing natures. But when the golem’s violent nature overtakes her one evening, their bond is challenged. An even more powerful threat will emerge, however, and bring Chava and Ahmad together again, challenging their very existence and forcing them to make a fateful choice.

Compulsively readable, The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical fable, in a wondrously inventive tale that is mesmerizing and unforgettable.

Binding Type: Paperback
Author: Helene Wecker
Published: 12/31/2013
Publisher: Harper Perennial
ISBN: 9780062110848
Pages: 496
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 1.20″ H x 8.20″ L x 5.50″ W

About the Author
Wecker, Helene: –

Helene Wecker is the author of The Golem and the Jinni–which was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award–and its sequel, book two of the trilogy, The Hidden Palace. A Midwest native, she holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in literary journals such as Joyland and Catamaran, as well as the fantasy anthology The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children.