Marjan Kamali’s powerful novel follows the lives of Homa and Ellie, two women battling the suffocating forces of patriarchy and authoritarianism in Iran, as they struggle for freedom, dignity, and survival
Long after finishing Iranian-American writer Marjan Kamali’s latest novel, The Lion Women of Tehran (Simon & Schuster UK), one remains invested in the impossible trials and intermittent but pyrrhic triumphs of its central characters — Homa and Ellie — almost wishing that the final victory be theirs. But it is Iran and their saga of tribulations unfolds against political regimes which are authoritarian, suppressive and self-righteous. The change of guards from a Westernised Shah to a fundamentalist regime changes nothing in relation to democratic space, hold of patriarchy and the pathetic lot of women.
But never in history has any dystopia been so absolute and so overwhelming as to render imagination, dissent and resistance impossible. The fictionalised character of Homa — more than anyone else — represents this spirit of resistance and defiance. Clearly, the novel has been written from the perspective of the Iranian women who — despite impossible odds — refuse to bow down on their knees. It is about their resilience and their obstinacy to not give up even when there is little to cling to and there are lots to lose. No wonder, the reference to Shir-Zan (Lion Women) runs throughout the novel.
Fiction with a political background
The novel draws a long arc: from the 1950s to the late 1970s when Shah was trying to turn Iran culturally westernised and strategically a valuable ally of America. With democratic space denied and dissent suppressed viciously and violently, the 1979 Islamic Revolution followed what the Iranian Philosopher Ahmad Fardid called ‘West-toxication.’ Fed up with extreme materialism, frustrated with the denial of its past, with democratic space having been squeezed and the secret forces mounting crackdown upon any sign of dissent, mosques emerged as rallying points.
The communists found themselves in an uneasy alliance with the Islamists. But their cohabitation after 1979 was impossible. After the tyranny of Shah years, the new regime seemed redemptive before its austere fundamentalism would trample upon the freedom and rights of women. Regimented in character, sweeping in suppression, prescriptive to the last details, the women of Iran lost what they had struggled to achieve through the decades of struggles. The Iran-Iraq war would only strengthen authoritarianism and patriarchy. Against this background of suppressive denial, the women of Iran haven’t kept quiet.
The solidarity of sorority
The women in the novel come in all hues. Ellie’s mother — proud of her non-existent royal antecedents, disdainful of those on the margins, obsessed with turning her decadent fortunes around and concerned about her daughter Ellie’s marriage — contrasts sharply with Homa’s mother — compassionate, capacious and caring despite her constrained financial circumstances and a committed communist for a husband who is in jail. Ellie is torn between her friendship with Homa and her aspiration for upward mobility, between empathy and aspiration. But it is Homa who is at the helm of the novel. Her time horizon includes past, present and future in relation to the condition of women. A fierce communist and at the vanguard of protests against the oppressive regimes. In Iran of misogyny and oppression, she would pay a heavy price, including serving extended jail terms from where she would emerge violated, abused and pregnant but invulnerable.
She could have emerged unscathed if she had given her friend Ellie away, for Ellie had translated the subversive Communist literature from English into Persian — something that had triggered protests against the Shah regime. Ellie, on the other hand, lives in Iran and later in America — under the guilt of giving Homa away to the regime in a moment of absent- mindedness. Later, they would make up. Homa’s daughter Bahar would be taken in by Ellie and her husband Mehrdad in America where she would chart out her own course.
For a while, Homa toys with the idea of leaving Iran for America where she would open a cafe with Ellie. But she is invested too much in Iran, in its women, their fate and fight to leave Iran. But notwithstanding their differences, there are common threads holding them together. Women in general are pitted against the predicament created by patriarchal misogyny and oppressive politics. All of them struggle to better their appalling conditions — some through the agency of education, others through agitation.
Is the struggle against autocracy futile?
Kamali puts this question at the centre of the novel. The juggernaut of authoritarianism — whether under Shah or later — deals with the voices of protest and dissent with a heavy hand. And yet the protest continues. Why do people, especially women, protest? Why does Homa stick her neck out when she could have gone over to America to live an orderly life with her childhood friend and her daughter and granddaughter? Why does she commit herself to the struggle for the rights of women again and again, crackdown after crackdown? What keeps her going?
Marjan alludes to a number of possibilities through the novel. One, when have women not fought against the entrenched obstinacy of patriarchy? Women live perilous lives and their reconciliation with the status quo would make their lot even more precarious. Two, women have a more capacious view of the world because they long for a world where their children could grow up to be normal human beings. Three, despite the apparent invincibility of the authoritarian regimes, they remain vulnerable and it is possible to resist, defy, stand against and be counted.
Again, despite the seeming futility of struggles, they do add up — incrementally, tentatively and mostly invisibly but they do end up undermining the foundations of brutal regimes. So, when Homa chooses to return and remain rooted in Iran, she understands that in the battle of unequals, tenacity, obstinacy, intransigence and a modicum of madness could be extremely valuable resources. When Iran boils over after the tragic demise of Mahsa Amini and when more and more people start asking the right kind of questions, she knows that her lifelong struggle has not been futile.
Why the novel ought to be read...
Because even if it is a fictionalised account of the tribulations of women in Iran, it speaks of universalism and evokes empathy. It feels to be everyone’s struggles in which everyone is a stakeholder. Because it is a beautiful snapshot of the recent history of Iran and its proud Persian civilisational affinities and continuities. Because it is about how literature and politics interact with each other and how literature creates openings and possibilities for making the world a more humane place and how storytelling lies at the centre of the civilisations.
As Milan Kundera reminds us, “The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.” The powers that be wish amnesia on the part of people and wish that they subscribe to its version of past, its roadmap for present and its blueprint for future. The wonderful art of novel-writing rummages through, retrieves and weaves alternative memories into voices through storytelling. Kamali succeeds wonderfully well in doing so.
