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How long will you wait for someone you love?
Marjan Kamali’s ‘The Stationery Shop’ is a tender Iranian romance
The year is 1953, the country is Iran.
Prime Minister Mossadegh’s supporters are secretly rallying for him, gathering forces and frantically striving to stop his potential oust. Meanwhile, the monarchists are in a frenzy, sniping at anyone who dares to speak up against their beloved Shah.
Amid this chaos, seventeen-year-old Roya finds her respite in a stationery shop in Tehran. Her father has big dreams for her education, and she is equally enthralled by the rows of translated novels and poetry by Rumi. The kindly shopkeeper Mr. Fakhri indulges her, and her love for all things pen and paper.
Into this simple routine of learning and ideals there enters a hurricane named Bahman. He is, Mr. Farzi says, a “boy who will change the world.” He does indeed transform Roya’s world, for she is soon in love with him. He is even more besotted with her, and the unfolding of this teenage romance is one of the sweetest, most enchanting pieces of writing we’ve witnessed in recent times.
Their love story forms the crux of the novel, and we live with it the next sixty years. The story remains charming throughout. There are unpredictable twists of fate, family interferences…
