The Lion Women of Tehran follows Ellie and Homa, two girls from opposite sides of Tehran's class divide who meet on the first day of school in 1950s Iran and forge an unlikely, world-shaping friendship. As they come of age amid the political upheaval building toward the 1979 Iranian Revolution, one devastating betrayal will alter the course of both their lives forever.
My Review
I dare you to read this book and remain unmoved.
Marjan Kamali has given us something I can only describe as a treasure: rich with culture and color and flavor, nostalgic and devastating and hopeful all at once. I finished it thinking about my own childhood best friend, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can pay a novel about female friendship. Ellie and Homa found their way under my skin and stayed there.
“It was books. I read and read. Went to the library as much as I could. And to bookstores. Lost myself in books. Did you know that books can heal you? They helped restore me.”
We meet them as seven-year-olds on their first day of school in 1950s Tehran, two girls from opposite sides of the class divide who become inseparable. They cook together in Homa’s stone kitchen, wander the Grand Bazaar, and dream of becoming shir zan. Lion women. Girls who will change the world. But the dream of becoming a lion woman, it turns out, comes with a price.
“Lionesses. Us. Can’t you just see it Ellie? Someday, you and me — we’ll do great things. We’ll live life for ourselves. And we will help others. We are cubs now, maybe. But we will grow to be lionesses. Strong women who will make things happen.”
Life, status, wealth, and family will pull these two apart and push them back together across decades, and when the political turmoil of pre-revolutionary Iran finally reaches a breaking point, one shattering betrayal will alter both their lives forever.
Kamali’s writing is the kind that makes you forget you are reading. The children leap off the page so vividly that you can picture them playing in the streets, taste the Persian food, feel the weight of the elaborate buildings around them. My heart broke for Ellie and everything she endured, and I will admit that certain side characters produced in me a visceral, protective rage that only happens when a story has truly got you.
“That’s how losses of rights build. They start small. And then soon, the rights are stripped in droves.”
This is a book about friendship and shame and betrayal and the long, complicated road back to forgiveness. It is also, quietly and powerfully, a book about women’s rights and political activism that feels urgently relevant right now.
“I recently read a theory about ocean waves. This theory says that while to our eyes waves appear suddenly on the shore, their abruptness is an illusion. Waves begin their journey thousands of miles out at sea. They accumulated shape and power from winds and undersea currents for ages. And so when you see the women screaming in Iran for their rights, please remember, dear Leily, that the force and fury of our screams have been gathering power for years.”