Author and chef Donia Bijan shares her novel “The Last Days of Café Leila” set against the backdrop of her youth in Iran before the revolution.

Bijan's family fled Iran in 1978 during the Islamic Revolution. After she returned to Tehran in 2010, she felt inspired to write her novel. She based it off her question of what if she stayed in Iran?

She says writing the novel helped her channel her emotions of being uprooted from her home and having nostalgia for her past life.

Bijan will be read from her book at the Carmichael Library Wednesday, May 31 at 6 p.m.