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Check This Out: Marjan Kamali & 'The Lion Women of Tehran'

David E. Lawrence

Discover a new author with Check This Out. This series features host Rachel Barenbaum in conversation with emerging and diverse writers about their latest work.

The third season of writer interviews begins with Marjan Kamali, author of "The Lion Women of Tehran."

A heartfelt epic about friendship, betrayal, and redemption during three transformative decades in Iran. Kamali paints a picture of a time filled with hope and just the hint of fear that it could all come crashing down.

The novel starts in the 1950s, when two girls, Ellie and Homa, meet and become best friends, the book follows them over the next several decades as their lives diverge and braid back together with rich descriptions of the bazaar, the smells, the foods, and Tehran itself.

Ellie and Homa struggle to understand not only the betrayal that rocks their friendship and lives while living through the parallel betrayal when the country and freedom they know and love disappears, replaced by harsh laws that quash women's rights, human rights and dreams.

This book is full of love, friendship, and heartbreak. It's also teeming with history and will make you feel like you are living through the revolution with Ellie and Homa.

How fragile is freedom? Freedom to be, to love, to live, and how quickly and how easily do we make mistakes that change the course of our lives.


Check this Out features lively conversations with up and coming authors, and serves as a platform for diverse voices and stories to be heard. NHPR and The Howe Library are proud to be able to bring these conversations into your homes and headphones.

Subscribe to the podcast here

Rachel Barenbaum is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels Atomic Anna and A Bend in the Stars. She is a prolific writer and reviewer. Her work has appeared in the LA Review of Books, Harper’s Bazaar, and more.
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