Helene Wecker takes her readers on a magical mystery
through this pre-modern affair between THE GOLEM AND THE
JINNI. It is a stunning rendition of a two classic tales
that's never quite been told like this before.
Chava, a creature made entirely from clay is a mysterious,
beautiful and unique golem who was designed with one
purpose in mind, to be a wife for her master. Upon her
wakening, Chava is forced to make a decision that would
either save her existence on Earth or lead her down a path
that would destroy her forever. Caught between the duty of
a golem and the passion of a woman, Chava decides she
should make her own fate and heads for New York to start
adventure that is all her own.
Ahmad, a presence of fire is a jinni that became trapped in
a copper flask centuries ago by a wizard. His desire is to
be freed from the iron cuff that chains him so that he can
return to his palace and live out his days in the comfort
he so desperately enjoys. It isn't until a tinsmith in a
lower Manhattan shop named Arbeely finds his flask and
releases him, that Ahmad realizes there may be more to life
than his palace in the sand.
When THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI come face to face, their
stories take an interesting turn that leaves both wondering
just how they can exist in the same world with one another.
Conflict after conflict brings them both to a point of no
return until they discover that they have more in common
than just being inhuman. In fact, the one thing they have
in common could be the one thing that changes both of their
fates forever, leaving them both destroyed in the end.
THE GOLEM AND THE JINNI is a wonderful read full of magic,
trust, hardship. It is a story that is so captivating that
you'll be yearning for more when you finish the last page.
In The Golem and the Jinni, a chance meeting between
mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through
cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. Chava is a golem,
a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced
rabbi who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic and dies at sea
on the voyage from Poland.
Chava is unmoored and adrift as
the ship arrives in New York harbor in 1899. Ahmad is a
jinni, a being of fire born in the ancient Syrian desert,
trapped in an old copper flask, and released in New York
City, though still not entirely free Ahmad and Chava become
unlikely friends and soul mates with a mystical connection.
Marvelous and compulsively readable, Helene Wecker's debut
novel The Golem and the Jinni weaves strands of Yiddish and
Middle Eastern literature, historical fiction and magical
fable, into a wondrously inventive and unforgettable tale.