The Golem & the Jinni

- Helene Wecker

Fantasy/Historical Fiction. Weaves Yiddish and Middle Eastern literature.

Chava is a golem, clay creature made by a disgraced rabbi who studied Dark Kabbalistic magic. She is a wife to a Polish merchant who dies at sea en route to America. When she arrives in NY in 1899, Chava is lost until a rabbi recognizes her and takes her in. Ahmad is a jinni, fireborn in the ancient Syrian desert and trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard. He is released by a Syrian tinsmith in a Manhattan shop. He appears as human, but is still bound to the wizard. Chava and Ahmad meet and become friends and soulmates, with a journey that challenges their bonds, existence and fate.

Sequel - The Hidden Palace revisits Chava and Ahmad in both New York City and the Middle East, in the years leading up to World War I.

Author: Helene Wecker- is a Midwestern Native with an MFA from Columbia. The Golem and the Jinni was her first novel, published in 2013, and 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.