Credit: Zach Heffner

Following her hugely successful memoir, Maman's Homesick Pie, chef and author Donia Bijan presents a novel about Iran that few in the West ever see. The Last Days of Cafe Leila is a novel set in a country balancing uncertainly between grace and brutality and holds, at its center, the relationship between a mother and a daughter as they search for each other from across generational and cultural divides.

Donia Bijan is a Bay Area chef and author. After graduating from UC Berkeley, she attended the Cordon Bleu in Paris and ran her own restaurant, L’Amie Donia, in Palo Alto, for ten years.

Her well-acclaimed memoir, Maman’s Homesick Pie, was published in 2011. She lives in California with her husband, Mitchell Johnson, and their son.