Jumping Over Fire

by Nahid Rachlin

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872864529
• ISBN13: 9780872864528
• Release Date: April 2006
• Publisher: City Lights Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Culture Shock

I just finished reading Nahid Rachlin's JUMPING OVER FIRE, a beautifully crafted tale, written with subtlety and insight that is rare in modern prose. Her deeply moving story about the Ellahi family, caught up in the throes of the Iranian revolution, touches on a myriad of topics, including forbidden love, and the loss and abandonment of family and country. What is most remarkable about Ms. Rachlin's writing is the empathy she brings to each character -- particularly to Nora, the heroine, who, by birth and by circumstance, straddles two cultures. JUMPING OVER FIRE presents a window into this unique world. I highly recommended this book.

Nora As Alter Ego

So deftly and thoroughly does Rachlin flesh out the character of her protagonist, one quickly comes to think of Nora as an alter ego. Yet another example of Rachlin's specialty:provocative deceptively simple prose brimming with psychological insight.This reader would love a sequel!

Love and War

Jumping Over Fire is the story of a forbidden love affair with a sweeping backdrop of history. With this difference: the history is recent and immediate, with implications for events now unfolding in the middle east. And with this difference: unlike many historical novels, Rachlin's characters are vivid, their plight deeply moving. Her writing is very assured, with a thorough understanding of both the Iranian and United States cultures. It has elements that will draw in those interested in women's rights, immigration and displacement, Islam, the Middle East, racism, and--oh, yeah, people who want a really good love story.

Extraordinary Novel

Nahid Rachlin's Jumping Over Fire is an engaging portrait of an Iranian-American family caught up in the midst of turmoil of an Islamic revolution, hostage crisis, cultural tensions, and exile in America. The protagonists, mainly Nora and Jahan and their American-Iranian parents, are complex and very real. Nora's attraction to her adopted brother Jahan is developed in the context of all the limitations she feels as a young girl growing up in Iran. The passion, the skillful way that the narrative unfolds, propel the reader to keep turning the pages. At the same time Jumping Over Fire is a timely book that through its characters illuminates the Iranian culture more intimately than the news can.

The intimately crafted story of an Iranian family who find themselves caught up in the midst of an I

Nahid Rachlin's Jumping Over Fire is the intimately crafted story of an Iranian family who find themselves caught up in the midst of an Islamic revolution, corruption, a hostage crisis, and exile in America. As the family of the young Nora and her adopted brother Jahan struggle with their futile living conditions which results in their immigrating to America, Jumping Over Fire explores the daily lives of these two young people and their parents as they individually carry themselves through their new American circumstances. Jumping Over Fire is very strongly recommended, particularly for those with an interest in the all to common post 9/11 American mentality which may often be cold and cruel in the prejudice against immigrants from Islamic cultures and countries.