The Lion Women of Tehran, by Marjan Kamali (Simon & Schuster)
This is a novel about Iranian women whose plight, I suspect, has been overtaken in Western minds, certainly mine, by the virtual cancellation of women in Afghanistan.
Yet Iranian women have recently made the Western news cycle, specifically with the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini by security forces in September 2022 for wearing her hijab incorrectly.
This appalling incident led to women and girls taking to the streets of Iran in protest, which filled many Iranians in the diaspora, including author Marjan Kamali, with hope once again that something might change. But no. In an author’s note she writes: “I watched as the women and men of Iran rose up to fight for freedom and were quashed by security forces.”
The Lion Women of Tehran is Kamali’s third novel. She says writing about Iranian women’s rights has been a central theme of her life. She comes from a long line of “strong, very vocal, and opinionated Iranian women who in some instances broke new ground… in other instances saw their lives stymied and constrained by a patriarchal culture, and in all cases experienced a hard-line government eradicate almost overnight rights for which women had fought for decades”.
But beginning the review this way I am probably doing the novel an injustice, because while it certainly has political themes, it is primarily a wonderful story about the power of women’s friendship. Continue reading