Summary
The Last Days of Café Leila by Donia Bijan tells the story of the Café Leila, a family owned restaurant in Tehran, and her owers, the Yadegar family. The power of food and family has held the family and the café together for generations but during the Islamic Revolution, when business is faltering and all seems lost, family patriarch, Zod, is forced to send his children Noor and Mehrdad to the United States to keep them safe. Many years later, Zod’s health is failing and Noor’s marriage has fallen to pieces. Can the Café Leila bring them all back together once again? Or has thousands of miles and the influences of other cultures made them too far apart? Told in the perspective of 3 generations, The Last Days of Café Leila is a story about family, food, home, and immigration.
Jessica Jenkins ’19