The Last Days of Café Leila Summary
Bijan, Donia

The Last Days of Café Leila Overview

The Last Days of Cafe Leila by Donia Bijan reads as a love letter to a great many things the main character adores. The story spans four generations of the same family running the same cafe in Tehran, Iran. Cafe Leila plays a significant enough role that it is as if the cafe itself is a character whose kitchen brings everyone together. Bijan focuses on Noor, an Iranian woman whose father forced her to attend college in the US after the Iranian revolution changed their way of life. She returns home for a visit but finds that she needs to explore a closer relationship with her origins in order to discover what type of person she truly is. The Last Days of Cafe Leila weaves the family's story around descriptions of food served by the family and by the cafe. The novel centers around the importance of food as a means of showing affection and contains strong themes on the importance of family, home, and tradition.