Biography
Marjan Kamali is the nationally best-selling author of The Lion Women of Tehran, a novel that People described as an “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism,” set against three transformative decades in Iran. It was a Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction in 2024 and won multiple literary prizes, including the ARA Historical Novel Prize. Praised for its evocative storytelling, the novel has been compared to The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend for its emotional depth and vivid portrayal of friendship amidst political upheaval. Kamali is the recipient of the 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Award.
The Lion Women of Tehran
In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.
Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”
But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.