The Lion Women of Tehran

Content Warning: This novel and review contain references to rape, gender discrimination, death, and graphic violence. 

Marjan Kamali’s exploration of women’s lives and friendships against the fraught backdrop of the Iranian Revolution, immigration, and ongoing oppression speaks immediately to readers hungry for a feminist tale of survival and resilience. Kamali’s insight into Iranian culture as an Iranian American permits both a realistic and horrifying glimpse into how changes in government have curtailed women’s rights during and after the Iranian Revolution. Infused with the sensual details of food, setting, and Persian culture that made Kamali’s two previous novels a success, The Lion Women of Tehran is an expansive study of a troubled history, a story of the powerful and enduring bonds between women, and a fierce call to action to make the world a better place for one’s daughters. The book’s immediate acclaim and prompt translation into nearly a dozen languages bear testimony to the potency these themes bear for women across the world.

Kamali’s work of historical women’s fiction opens in 1981 New York City when Ellie, married to her high school sweetheart, Mehrdad, hears from her beloved childhood friend, Homa, with whom she hasn’t spoken in years. Subsequent chapters flash back to 1953 Tehran, where the lively Homa, who is infused with the spirit of the shir zan (lion women), befriends a young Ellie. As the girls grow to adulthood and attend Tehran University together, Ellie’s wish for a safe, quiet life as a literary scholar and Mehrdad’s wife causes increasing friction with Homa, who is a leader of the student protest group. Gradually, the chapters work up to the betrayal that has haunted Ellie into adulthood: A thoughtless remark on Ellie’s part leads to Homa’s arrest by the secret police. She is sexually assaulted in jail and later released to bear a daughter, Bahar. The middle chapters of the book focus on Homa’s struggles to heal from her trauma and raise her daughter, while Ellie moves with Mehrdad to the United States. When the Islamic Revolution overtakes Iran and bombs from the war with Iraq batter their home, Homa begs Ellie to bring Bahar to safety.

Ellie readily agrees. However, with Homa’s daughter in her house—and Homa trapped inside a regime that forces women into hijab and out of public life—the guilt that she is responsible for Homa’s struggles weighs on Ellie. Her guilt both intensifies and ebbs when, on a visit to New York for Bahar’s graduation, Homa reveals that she chose to protect Ellie while in jail. While Homa remains trapped in Iran, still leading protests against the Iranian government’s stripping of women’s rights, Bahar’s daughter, Leily, grows up safe in the US and bears witness to her grandmother’s enduring passion for justice.

Kamali makes a bold choice, choosing for her predominant narrator not the forceful Homa but the more mild-mannered Ellie, who would prefer to fit in and be admired and is conflict-averse and fearful of persecution. Though Ellie would rather study where Homa would rather lead, Kamali convincingly captures the love between the two friends; this is due in great part to Homa’s sturdy loyalty, part and parcel of her dedication to her passions. Readers will be grateful that Kamali glances away from describing Homa’s rape in jail and shows her eventually healing from it, finding solace and support in her friendly marriage, devotion to her daughter, and her career as a teacher. Ellie’s character conflicts are paler in comparison; she bemoans her childlessness, lets her guilt paralyze her, and settles for a job at the cosmetics counter in Bloomingdale’s instead of a career of her own. Still, Kamali renders Ellie’s more cautious nature and wish for safety sympathetically; she becomes a point of refuge for Bahar and, briefly, Homa when the two friends unite and finally clear the air between them.

Kamali’s setting is richest in 1950s and 1960s Iran. The sensual details of food and a memorable afternoon the girls spend in the Grand Bazaar of Tehran far overshadow the plainer and colorless life Ellie leads in the US. Ellie’s mother—who functions as a foil and, at times, an antagonist—provides humorous commentary on the contrast between Persian culture, which is colorful, textured, and a rich blend of traditions, with the pizza and frozen yogurt of America. But the contrast is most intense in the stability of the two countries; in Iran, Bahar barely escapes a beating by fundamentalists, while the dangers confronting her in the US are popularity and, in a brief but climactic hospitalization, alcohol poisoning. In the concluding chapter, Bahar’s daughter, Leily, enjoying food and fellowship with her family and friends in Ellie’s café, watches her grandmother march on TV. This highlights the distant and sometimes surreal aspect that oppression holds for American audiences.

While skipping over Bahar’s adulthood and Leily’s childhood misses an opportunity to connect and elaborate on Kamali’s major themes, the omission makes the novel’s length manageable. Moreover, the structure of the book gives more time and attention to the hopeful dreams of young Homa and Ellie—who repeat to themselves, with a frequency that is foreboding, how many opportunities they have in a modernizing Iran. While Kamali gives less attention to the tragic fate of women under the Islamic Republic, she doesn’t gloss over the atrocities; for example, she uses the 2022 death in police custody of Mahsa Jina Amini and the resultant protests to crystallize the oppression Iranian women face and the hope that Homa and other feminist protestors feel for a return to freedom. While the reader’s awareness of the current state of events in Iran works against the book’s hopeful strands, Homa’s message to love in the face of adversity serves as a resonant last word.

Unlike the focus on the central romance in Kamali’s previous novels, Together Tea and The Stationery Shop of Tehran, romance takes a backseat in this novel. Instead, Kamali focuses on the independent character arcs and the friendship between the protagonists as both Ellie and Homa carve out lives with which they can live. Kamali’s prose is delicious yet palatable and never overburdened. Readers will find the history enlightening, the themes encouraging, and the action satisfying. It’s a novel they’ll want to read with their friends and book club.