Caspian Rain - Tapa blanda

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.
From the Hardcover edition.

Gina B. Nahai is the author of Cry of the Peacock (winner of the Los Angeles Arts Council Award for Fiction), Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (finalist for the Orange Prize in England and the IMPAC award in Dublin), and Sunday’s Silence. Her novels have been translated into sixteen languages and are taught at universities and high schools nationwide. Nahai was a contributing author to The Modern Jewish Girl’s Guide to Guilt, which won the 2005 Jewish Book Award, and her writing has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Magazine, and the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. Nahai currently lives in Los Angeles, where she is a professor of creative writing at the University of Southern California and is at work on a new novel."
From the Hardcover edition.