Stationery Shop (Kamali) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1970-71
• Where—Turkey
• Raised—Turkey, Kenya, Germany, Iran, and the U.S.
• Education—B.A., University of California-Berkeley; M.B.A., Columbia University; M.F.A., New York University
• Currently—lives outside of Boston, Massachusetts


Marjan Kamali was born in Turkey to Iranian parents. Her father was in the diplomatic corp, and Kamali spent her childhood in Kenya, Germany, Turkey, post-revolutionary Iran. In 1982, the family moved to Forest Hills, Queens, in New York City.

Kamali holds degrees from UC Berkeley, Columbia University, and New York University. To distract herself from spreadsheet drudgery while studying for her M.B.A. at Columbia, she began to write at fiction, eventually penning a short story that would become the opening chapter of her debut novel.

That debut, Together Tea, was published in 2013. It became a Massachusetts Book Award Finalist, an NPR WBUR Good Read, and a Target Emerging Author Selection. In 2019, Kamali issued her second novel, The Stationery Shop.

Kamail's other work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in two anthologies: Tremors and Let Me Tell You Where I’ve Been. An excerpt from The Stationery Shop was published in Solstice Literary Magazine and nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Marjan lives with her husband and two children in the Boston area. (Adapted from the publisher and Boston Athenaeum.)