A Way Home — Nahid Rachlin

The characters in the twenty stories in Nahid Rachlin's short story collection, A Way Home, mostly set in Iran and America, not only long for home but face the question: Where, really, is my home? Themes of separation--children from parents, spouses from each other--are the core of this collection. The characters, searching for what they have left behind, sometimes find what they were hoping for; at other times, are devastated. In stories filled with tension and often ending in surprise, we are reminded of the pull of home on each character, wherever home is. If you have never been to Iran or even if you have, this is a must-read for understanding the modern people and culture and their sometimes romanticized interactions with counterparts in the U.S. Ann Tyler, NY Times Book Review: I am so impressed with Nahid Rachlin's style its purity and sparseness and immediacy. In remarkably few words, she has managed to bring to life an entire small pocket of existence... a rare intimate look at Iranians who are poorer and less educated. The voice is cool and pure. Bleak is the right word, if you will understand that bleakness can have a startling beauty. Nahid Rachlin's publications include a memoir, Persian Girls (Penguin) and four novels, Jumping Over Fire (City Lights), Foreigner (W.W. Norton-John Murray, London) and Married to a Stranger (E.P.Dutton, hardcover; City Lights, paperback.) She attended the Columbia University Writing Program on a Doubleday-Columbia Fellowship, then went on to Stanford University writing program on a Wallace Stegner Fellowship. Her individual short stories have appeared in many magazines, including The Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Redbook and Shenandoah. One of her stories was chosen by Symphony Space, Selected Shorts, and was aired on NPR stations around the country.