The Last Days of Café Leila: A Novel

Donia Bijan

Aug 2017 · Highbridge Audio · Narrated by Deepti Gupta

About this audiobook

Set against the backdrop of Iran's rich, turbulent history, this exquisite debut novel is a powerful story of food, family, and a bittersweet homecoming. When we first meet Noor, she is living in San Francisco, missing her beloved father, Zod, in Iran. Now, dragging her stubborn teenage daughter, Lily, with her, she returns to Tehran and to Café Leila, the restaurant her family has been running for three generations. Iran may have changed, but Café Leila, still run by Zod, has stayed blessedly the same—it is a refuge of laughter and solace for its makeshift family of staff and regulars.



As Noor revisits her Persian childhood, she must rethink who she is—a mother, a daughter, a woman estranged from her marriage and from her life in California. And together, she and Lily get swept up in the beauty and brutality of Tehran.

About the author

Donia Bijan graduated from UC Berkeley and Le Cordon Bleu. After presiding over many of San Francisco's acclaimed restaurants and earning awards for her French-inspired cuisine, in 1994 she opened her own restaurant, L'amie Donia, in Palo Alto. She now divides her days between raising her son, teaching, and writing.

Fluent in Hindi, Urdu, and English, actress Deepti Gupta has an international career spread across India, Singapore, Pakistan, and the United States. She has earned praise from the New York Times for her performance in the feature film Walkaway, and also stars in Record/Play, a 2013 Sundance Film Festival selection.