The Lion Women of Tehran

The Lion Women of Tehran (2024) is a work of historical fiction and the third novel by Iranian American author Marjan Kamali, whose other works include Together Tea (2013) and The Stationery Shop (2019). The novel explores the intertwined yet divergent lives of two Iranian girls as they grow into adulthood and experience different social classes, political leanings, and dreams. Spanning from 1950 Tehran through the 1979 Iranian Revolution to the US in 2022, the novel is a textured but hopeful exploration of the Bonds of Friendship and Loyalty among women, the shaping influence of class and culture, and how the changes in government have impacted Iranian women from 1950 onward. Other themes include Jealousy, Guilt, and Redemption and The Protectiveness of Mothers.

This guide references the first Gallery Books hardcover edition.

Content Warning: The text includes sexual assault, rape, and pregnancy loss.

Plot Summary

The novel opens in New York City in 1981, when Ellie, 38, ends her shift at the cosmetics counter of a major department store and prepares to travel home. Ellie purchases a slice of pizza but gives it to a woman she sees asking for assistance near the subway. As she travels home to her husband, Mehrdad, Ellie thinks about the airmail letter she received from her childhood friend, Homa, with whom she hasn’t spoken in 17 years.

The story then flashes back to Tehran, Iran, in 1950. After her father dies, seven-year-old Ellie and her mother move from their luxurious home to a smaller house in downtown Tehran. While Ellie’s mother bemoans their location and dependence on Ellie’s uncle, Massoud, Ellie looks forward to starting school, where she meets the bright-eyed, rambunctious Homa Roozbeh. Ellie is whole-heartedly accepted into Homa’s family, learning to cook from Homa’s mother and playing games with Homa; Ellie harbors an unspoken jealousy for all her friend has. Ellie feels she only has grief and her bitter mother.

When they are in fourth grade, both at the top of their class, Homa persuades Ellie to skip school one afternoon. They visit the Grand Bazaar, which seems a wondrous place to Ellie, and the girls eat ice cream and discuss their futures. While Ellie imagines she will eventually get married and have children, Homa wants to become a judge and help change the laws to grant women more freedom. She wants to be a shir zan: a lioness. Their truancy is discovered, and Ellie’s mother decides to marry Massoud so she can take Ellie away from their neighborhood. Ellie is heartbroken to leave Homa, and though they exchange tokens of their friendship, they fall out of touch.

In 1963, entering 12th grade, Ellie is popular and beautiful, and she has fallen for a sweet, handsome young man named Mehrdad. When Homa enrolls in Ellie’s school, she quickly wins over Ellie and her new friends. Homa’s zest for life is still strong, but her family is struggling after her father, a communist supporter, was thrown in prison following the 1953 coup that deposed the prime minister. The girls enroll in Tehran University, where Homa becomes active in the communist cause. Ellie doesn’t want to get involved in politics, but she agrees to translate some pamphlets from English to Persian for Homa.

Ellie is delighted when Mehrdad proposes marriage, but at a party, when she sees Homa and Mehrdad together, she grows so jealous that she becomes physically sick. Their hostess, her friend Sousan, lets Ellie lie down, and Sousan’s husband, the colonel, begins chatting with Ellie about the bright future awaiting young Iranian women. Ellie boasts that Homa organized a major student protest. The next day at school, Ellie witnesses Homa getting snatched by the secret police and thrown into prison. Ellie is assailed by guilt when she learns from Sousan that the colonel is an agent of the secret police.

In jail, Homa refuses to give information and is raped by one of her interrogators. When Ellie is allowed to visit Homa years later, she is shocked to learn that Homa married one of their college classmates, Abdol, and has a young daughter, Bahar. Driven by remorse, Ellie offers Homa money, and Homa asks Ellie not to contact her again.

Ellie marries Mehrdad but learns that they are not able to have children. In 1977, when Mehrdad is offered a position at a university in New York City, Ellie prepares to leave Iran for what she thinks will be a short assignment. In the bazaar, she runs into Homa and Bahar, who both look well and healthy. Ellie tells Homa to contact her if she ever has need.

Homa struggles with the trauma of her imprisonment but eventually regains her fighting spirit. She gets her certification and becomes a teacher. When revolution deposes the shah, the last monarch of Iran, Homa is shocked and saddened to see rights for women disappearing under the new Islamic Republic, ruled by strict fundamentalists. Then, Iraq attacks Iran. As the bombs fall on Tehran, Homa fears for Bahar’s future and reaches out to Ellie.

Ellie and Mehrdad agree to host Bahar, and Ellie helps her enter high school and adapt to life in America. Ellie is glad for the opportunity to help her old friend but still experiences guilt. When Homa visits New York City for Bahar’s graduation, Ellie confesses her part in Homa’s arrest. She is stunned when Homa reveals that the interrogators wanted the name of the translator, but Homa refused to give them Ellie’s name. Ellie is profoundly touched by Homa’s protection, bravery, and forgiveness. Homa decides to arrange for a visa and return to the US to watch her daughter grow up.

In September 2022, Leily visits Miss Ellie’s café for her 18th birthday party. Miss Ellie, a longtime friend of Leily’s family, has opened a Persian café in their town of Lexington, Massachusetts. Leily’s mother, Bahar, helped prepare the food, and Leily’s friends are there to celebrate along with Leily’s father, Steve. After the celebrations, they watch the news of protests in Iran stemming from the death of a young Kurdish Iranian woman who died after being seized and beaten by the morality police. In one video of women protesting in the streets, they see Leily’s grandmother, Homa, still fighting. The Epilogue contains a letter from Homa describing how, when she returned to Iran from the US, she was imprisoned again and forbidden  to leave the country for decades. She chose to continue her work advocating for women’s rights, and she counsels her granddaughter to be brave and to love madly.