Donia Bijan’s debut novel, “Last Days of Café Leila,” is the story of a woman attempting to find herself by rediscovering her family history and her roots: Her native Iran, her parent’s home, and her family’s beloved Café Leila.
Bijan herself left Iran in 1978 and ran a restaurant in Palo Alto, California, for 10 years, so there are clearly some autobiographical touches in the novel.
Run by three-generations of the Yadegar family, Café Leila has stood throughout Iran’s political turmoil and its effects on the country and its people. It is a powerful novel about family, strength, and resilience that sweeps the reader into Tehran and into the lives of the Yadegars from the early 1930s to the present day.
Behzod (Zod) Yadegar, the café’s second-generation owner, is in Tehran waiting for the postman to deliver a letter from his daughter, Noor. But sometimes letters from America can take two or three weeks to arrive.
Meanwhile, Noor, a nurse in San Francisco, has left her husband of 16 years, due to his infidelity, and moved into an apartment with her teenage daughter. Eventually, unable to pull herself out of the hole she has fallen into, Noor writes to her father and asks her if she can come back home.
This is when the story moves to Tehran and Café Leila.
“In a cul-de-sac at the end of Nasrin Street, quiet except at the hour when the kindergartners at Firouzeh Elementary were set free, sat a faded yellow brick building detached from its neighbors. Here, beneath a recessed sign, was Café Leila, its entrance framed in a low-hanging wisteria in full bloom.”
Within the confines of Café Leila, its garden and the now-obsolete Hotel Leila are Zod; 85-year-old Naneh Goli — Zod’s old nanny; waiters Hedayat and Aladdin who “still wore the same faded dark blue jackets with gold-fringed epaulettes, making them look like retired generals;” cousin Soli, who joined the staff after the war; and Karim, a young orphan apprentice who does odd jobs around the complex when not in school. With the exception of Soli and Karim, these are all the people Noor left behind nearly 30 years ago.
Bijan sensitively contrasts Noor’s San Francisco and Zod’s Tehran. In America, there is cautious comfort, a beauty Noor recognizes, but from which she feels disconnected. In Tehran there is a familiarity, a certain sense of calm, despite the troubles and fear of political edicts.
Bijan also contrasts the emotions of mother and daughter. Lily, born and raised in America, is furious about their move. She has never visited Iran and does not speak the language. But Noor realizes her life in San Francisco had left her feeling empty, and finally feels a sense of belonging. “The world changed around Café Leila, but the life that had gone on there since the 1930s continued,” Bijan writes. The café is the glue that holds three generations together.
In every corner of the house, restaurant and garden are bits and pieces of Noor’s life, as well as the lives of her brother Mehrdad, her parents and her Russian expat grandparents who first opened the café. Noor embraces that past as the Café does — a history spanning generations. The small orchard of pomegranate, almond and mulberry planted by Noor’s grandfather Yanik, for instance, “Year after year they blossomed, filling the air with their sweet smell, regardless of political turmoil or the events on the street.” Through Yanik and Nina came a love for Iran and for Persian food that lives on through Zod and Noor.
Bijan’s story is a refreshing take on the immigrant experience — one that is filled with the discovery of culture and of delicious and inventive cuisine.
There is trouble for Noor and Lily in Tehran, in the form of restrictive laws and an ailing, elderly father, but somehow the two women manage to find themselves, or, in Lily’s case, another version of herself she was unaware existed.
“Last Days of Café Leila” is about cherishing the past and reclaiming spaces in both the physical and mental realms. It is about understanding oneself through one’s family and traditions. It is a journey that keeps Noor teetering on a line between her two roles of daughter to a sick father and mother to a defiant teenager.
Bijan writes beautifully of a homecoming, not only in terms of familial ties, but also the sensual experience: the trees, the sounds, the sights, and smells.
Café Leila is not just Noor’s childhood home, it is a place of refuge, healing, and a place of acceptance no matter status or creed.
Bijan leads her readers through a spectrum of emotions with an incredibly relatable story, especially for people who have had to leave their homes for whatever reason. Bijan, through Noor, sums up the story simply and powerfully: “(She) couldn’t do anything to change the conditions, she couldn’t deny her awareness and she couldn’t stand in the way of death or love. The only thing to do was to keep moving, to do something, to show courage, to give everything she was capable of giving.”
Book Review: The story of a woman on a quest to find herself
Book Review: The story of a woman on a quest to find herself

What We Are Reading Today: A Cure for Chaos

Author: Mencius
C. C. Tsai is one of Asia’s most popular cartoonists, and his graphic editions of the Chinese classics have sold more than 40 million copies in over 20 languages.
In “A Cure for Chaos,” he uses his virtuosic artistic skill and sly humor to create an entertaining and enlightening illustrated version of key selections from the Mencius, a profoundly influential work of Chinese philosophy.
You cannot understand Chinese philosophy without understanding Mencius (fourth century BCE), who is known as the Second Sage, after Confucius, and whose ideas were for many centuries part of the standard Confucian curriculum.
“A Cure for Chaos” is a playful and accessible comic that brings alive the clever stories and thought experiments that Mencius uses to convey his ideas.
What We Are Reading Today: The Trading Game

- The central thrust unfolds as Stevenson comes to the realization he is making his millions betting against the chances of the world economy recovering
Author: Gary Stevenson
Gary Stevenson’s thinly veiled vehicle for launching a political career is an undeniable rags-to-riches story which has captured the attention of “Broken Britain” at a time when living costs are spiraling, public services are in disarray and politicians seem unable to provide solutions.
A math prodigy from a working-class background, Stevenson paints a vivid picture of a career that took him from playing football on the streets of Ilford to becoming Citibank’s “most profitable trader” in the years after the 2008 financial crisis. (A claim, incidentally, credibly rebuked by his former colleagues in a Financial Times report.)
The pugnacious self-starter won a scholarship to the London School of Economics and was hired by Citibank after winning the eponymous trading game designed to jumpstart the careers of graduates based on their potential merit as traders.
He describes the characters he encounters along the way with a mix of bemusement and admiration, and overall his insider’s look at the world of banking has a vicarious pull.
The central thrust unfolds as Stevenson comes to the realization he is making his millions betting against the chances of the world economy recovering.
As his bonuses grow larger, his mental health declines and he decides to commit himself to the cause of fighting inequality— something that has garnered him a large online following and which is starting to look like an entry into politics.
While the book suffers from some of the conceit that puts any autobiographical work at risk, and some jarring editing (the first-person narration, for some reason, switches to using more slang about halfway through), it is still a strong piece of storytelling and the emotional rawness of Stevenson’s style makes a real impression.
While his political takeaways might raise the eyebrows of more conservative readers, his voice still cuts through the noise of British politics and speaks directly to ordinary people from the unique viewpoint of someone who has escaped poverty, lived the life of the ultra-rich, and decided to turn around in an apparent effort to help those less fortunate.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The African Revolution’

- The African Revolution demonstrates that “the Scramble” and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism
Author: RICHARD REID
Africa’s long 19th century was a time of revolutionary ferment and cultural innovation for the continent’s states, societies, and economies.
Yet the period preceding what became known as “the Scramble for Africa” by European powers in the decades leading up to World War I has long been neglected in favor of a Western narrative of colonial rule.
The African Revolution demonstrates that “the Scramble” and the resulting imperial order were as much the culmination of African revolutionary dynamics as they were of European expansionism.
What We Are Reading Today: "Beautiful Ugly"

- Alice Feeney is a New York Times bestselling author. In addition to “Beautiful Ugly,” she has also published “Rock Paper Scissors,” “Sometimes I Lie,” and “His & Hers”
Author: Alice Feeney
“Beautiful Ugly,” released in January, is a novel by British author Alice Feeney.
The story concerns Grady Green, an author, who is on the phone to his wife while she is driving home. During their conversation, he hears the screech of brakes as she spots an object on the road ahead.
Green’s tries to prevent his wife from leaving the car to investigate the object, before she mysteriously disappears.
To cope with his depression and grief, Green travels to an island in search of solace and perhaps a way to restore his life, particularly after losing sleep and his appetite for writing.
On the island, he is shocked to encounter a woman who resembles his missing wife, and the story takes another dramatic turn.
Although the novel has been rated by more than 87,000 users on Goodreads with an average of 3.6 out of 5 stars, some readers found the pace a bit slow.
“It’s a bit of a slow-burn mystery, which I feel is difficult to pull off since it doesn’t keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time,” one of the reviewers commented.
Despite being a work of fiction, another reader found the narrative unreliable and unrealistic, making it difficult to connect the events. Nevertheless, most readers appreciated the author’s writing style and imagination.
“All in all, I don’t hate the book, but there is too much melodrama and theatrical antics for a thriller. Since this is my favorite genre, I tend to be quite particular about how I like these novels to be constructed,” another reader said.
Alice Feeney is a New York Times bestselling author. In addition to “Beautiful Ugly,” she has also published “Rock Paper Scissors,” “Sometimes I Lie,” and “His & Hers.”
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Shooting an Elephant’

- While Orwell’s self-awareness is commendable, some readers may find his portrayal of the Burmese people overly passive, raising questions about perspectives that remain unheard in this narrative
Author: George Orwell
George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant” relates his experiences of a police officer in Burma who is called on to shoot an aggressive elephant that has broken free from its handler.
However, the essay — first published in 1936, and thought to be autobiographical — quickly turns into a searing indictment of power’s corrosive grip, with the unruly creature becoming a metaphor for the absurdity of empire.
Orwell sets the stage with quiet tension: the heat, the hostile stares of the Burmese, and the weight of his uniform. He is a man trapped — despised by those he governs, yet bound to the system he serves.
When the elephant rampages through a village, the crowd’s expectation becomes a noose around his neck. Orwell’s prose, stripped of sentiment, lays bare the hollowness of authority. He does not pull the trigger out of duty, but out of fear of appearing weak in the eyes of the villagers.
The essay’s brilliance lies in its ruthless self-exposure. Orwell refuses to cast himself as hero or even victim. Instead, he is complicit, a puppet of imperialism, forced to enact its violence in order to maintain the illusion of control.
Yet, one wonders: Does his introspection absolve him, or merely sharpen the hypocrisy? The dying elephant, gasping for air, is not just an animal, but a truth Orwell cannot escape.
Unlike traditional anti-colonial critiques that focus solely on oppression, “Shooting an Elephant” exposes the trap facing the oppressor.
Orwell’s shame is palpable, his confession unflinching. There is no redemption here, only the sickening realization that power does not liberate, but enslaves.
While Orwell’s self-awareness is commendable, some readers may find his portrayal of the Burmese people overly passive, raising questions about perspectives that remain unheard in this narrative.
The elephant falls, but the real tragedy is that no one — not the crowd, the empire, or even Orwell — walks away clean.
The bullet that kills the elephant also shatters the myth of imperial righteousness. And in that destruction, there is a terrible truth: Tyranny corrupts both the oppressed and the oppressor, leaving both bleeding in the dust.