The Stationery Shop of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

Description

In the spring of 1953, life in Tehran moves slowly. Street vendors shout out across the busy bazaar, cafés hum with the sound of tea glasses rattling, and the smell of jasmine wafts down the narrow streets. Yadollah, the serious proprietor of the city’s most lovely stationery store, meets Roya for the first time here. She is a smart young woman with a camera draped over her shoulder and eyes full of softly adventurous ideas. Their initial connection Roya’s search for the perfect fountain pen and Yadollah’s polite gentlemanliness runs through handwritten letters, shared poetry, quotes, and stolen afternoons spent flipping through leather-bound journals.

But the world around them is about to alter in a big way. Yadollah is called to military service as Iran’s political situation gets worse. Roya, who is full of hope and grief, is left with the memories of their summer together. When Yadollah doesn’t come back and letters stop coming, Roya’s anguish drives her to search for him for the rest of her life. She travels across continents and decades, putting together the pieces of their shared past.

There are two timeframes in Kamali’s story that are linked. In 1953, we enjoy Roya’s finely observed world her euphoric excitement as she takes pictures of Tehran’s skylines, her hilarity with Yadollah among stacks of colorful notebooks, and the heartbreaking ache as she seals his last letter with shaking hands. In 2003, we meet Elaheh, a twenty-six-year-old Iranian American professor who is trying to deal with the death of her mother and the secrets of her family’s history. Elaheh finds Roya’s old journal in an attic trunk. The pages are yellowed, but the words are still alive. She is determined to find out what happened to Yadollah and the truth about Roya’s beautiful journey.

As Elaheh follows Roya’s path from the Tehran Stationery Shop to an immigrant community in New York, the novel comes to life with vivid settings: the dusty bazaars and royal gardens of mid-century Iran, the small apartments of exiles after the revolution, and the quiet stacks of university libraries where Elaheh reads letters written in fading ink. She finds things that remind her of Roya and Yadollah’s love along the road, such drawings of pink flowers, newspaper cuttings of Yadollah’s secret codes, and the sound of a picture of them under Tehran’s blooming pear trees.

The Stationery Shop of Tehran is all about memory, sorrow, and how love lasts even when history and exile try to suppress it. Kamali looks at how personal and national upheavals are connected. For example, Yadollah’s disappearance is like the goals of a country on the verge of a coup, and Roya’s loneliness is like the diaspora’s desire to go home. Kamali, on the other hand, balances sadness with moments of bright hope: the healing power of art, the strength of women who share secrets, and the courage it takes to keep love alive across time and space.

At the end of the story, Elaheh’s revelations lead to a bittersweet reunion of more than just two lovers; they also bring together the past and the present, memory and identity. In the Stationery Shop, which has been reborn under new ownership, Elaheh and Roya enjoy a moment filled with the smell of ink and possibilities. This shows that even the most mundane settings may house the most amazing stories.

About the Author

Marjan Kamali is an Iranian American novelist and essayist whose work explores themes of displacement, identity, and the legacies of the past. A graduate of Wellesley College and Columbia Business School, Kamali draws on her bicultural heritage to craft emotionally resonant stories. Her debut novel, Together Tea, was shortlisted for the Virginia Prize, and The Stationery Shop of Tehran has been celebrated for its lyrical prose and rich historical tapestry.

Product Details

• Title: The Stationery Shop of Tehran 
• Author: Marjan Kamali 
• ISBN-13: 9781471185014 
• Publisher: Atria Books 
• Published: January 14, 2020 
• Pages: 384 
• Binding: Paperpack