The Stationery Shop of Tehran

The Stationery Shop of Tehran (2019) is a novel by the Iranian American novelist, Marjan Kamali. The novel is set in Tehran and the United States between 1953 and 2013, and follows the love story of Roya and Bahman, a young Iranian couple who fall in love in the 1950s after meeting in a stationery ship. They plan to marry, until an apparent misunderstanding separates the couple. Both lead separate lives for several decades, until a chance reunion in old age gives them the opportunity to confront and reconcile with the past. The novel explores The Experience of Love and Marriage, The Nature of Memory and Loss, and The Ties Between the Personal and Political.

Content Warning: The novel contains references to miscarriage, child loss, and death by suicide.

Plot Summary

The novel begins with a woman in her late seventies, Roya Archer, being driven by her husband to meet a former lover, Bahman, in a retirement community. While Bahman is clearly delighted to see her, Roya immediately demands to know why he didn’t wait for her on the Square many years ago.

The narrative flashes back to Tehran in 1953. The city is rapidly modernizing and has an exciting, metropolitan intellectual scene. Roya, the daughter of progressives who wish for her to become a famous scientist, seeks refuge from the growing political turmoil in the Stationery Shop, which is run and owned by Mr. Fakhri and stocks both the Persian classics and works of Western literature. Here, she meets and falls in love with Bahman, a young and idealistic supporter of the democratically-elected Prime Minister, Mossadegh.

Roya and Bahman’s relationship blossoms and they get engaged, despite the disapproval of Mrs. Aslan, Bahman’s mother, who does not think Roya is a good enough social prospect for her son. Bahman suddenly and inexplicably disappears, and Roya is afraid he has been arrested by the Shah’s police. She is delighted to receive a letter telling her that he is coming back and wishes for them to marry at the registry office right away. In the letter, Bahman asks Roya to meet him on Sepah Square on August 19.

As Roya heads to Sepah Square, she is caught up in the revolutionary mob intent on ousting Mossadegh. She is heartbroken that Bahman does not turn up. Eventually, Mr. Fakhri arrives on the square in an agitated state, but is shot in the chest by soldiers before he has a chance to speak to her. A few days later, Roya receives a letter from Bahman breaking off their marriage. His mother then calls her and says that Bahman will soon marry someone else. Devastated, Roya and her sister agree to their father’s proposal that they move to California to study.

In California, Roya meets and gets engaged to Walter, an American. Together they move to Boston, his hometown. However, Roya never forgets Bahman and a series of letters, which she has apparently never received, reveal that Bahman is still in love with her, had been waiting on a different square on the day of the coup, and believes that she has deliberately jilted him.

Roya and Bahman both become parents. Roya’s first daughter, Marigold, dies at one year of age. She and Walter are heartbroken but find the strength to carry on. Bahman and his family leave Iran and migrate to America to escape the Iran-Iraq war.

Quite by chance, 77-year-old Roya stumbles upon a perfect replica of Mr. Fakhri’s Stationery Shop that Bahman has opened in New England. Speaking to his son, she learns that Bahman is in a retirement community and arranges to visit him. When they first speak, his dramatically different version of events convinces her that he has dementia, so she makes a polite but rapid exit. Bahman writes her a letter, explaining what he has come to understand of their past. His mother, the daughter of a poor melon-seller, had been in a relationship with Mr. Fakhri, a member of a higher class. After being forced to perform an abortion on herself as a teenager, she lost a series of babies before Bahman finally survived, and never really recovered from the trauma. Bahman realizes that his mother must have pressured Mr. Fakhri to tamper with their letters to sabotage their relationship.

Roya rushes back to see Bahman, only to find that his health has badly deteriorated. Finally reconciled, the lovers spend one last afternoon together. Roya then learns that Bahman died later that evening. Despite their long separation and the series of losses and disappointments that she has experienced on both a personal and a political level, Roya is ultimately grateful for the enduring love and undying hope that transcend the vicissitudes of time.