Audio Book Narration

Donia Bijan is a Bay Area writer and chef. She attended the University of California at Berkeley before pursuing her culinary career in France. After presiding over a number of San Francisco’s acclaimed restaurants and earning awards for her French-inspired cuisine, she ran her own restaurant, L’Amie Donia, in Palo Alto. She is the author of a memoir, Maman’s Homesick Pie, and the novel, The Last Days of Café Leila, an Amazon Editor’s pick. 

In addition to her writing, she is a talented storyteller who brings a warm, relatable quality to her narration, transporting her listeners into the author’s world. Her fluency in French, Farsi, and Italian naturally enhance her range and vocal impressions with seamless transition between narrator and dialogue. 

Donia has narrated for Tantor Audio.

Major change

In Major Change, a short piece about narration, Donia makes the case that a beautiful voice can change our minds while story sustains our souls.

———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

I was late to my first French class at Berkeley, stumbling in as the professor read a passage from Madame Bovary. He paused and glanced at me while I slid as quietly as I could into a wobbly wooden desk chair. At the time, I didn’t understand what he was reading but it hardly mattered. Something washed over me—a memory of story time in a teahouse in Iran where my mother had taken me from time to time. Every afternoon, at four P.M., an old man with a long white beard recited stories from the Shahnameh, Ferdowsi’s account of Iran’s ancient history. Children sat at his feet on Persian carpets while parents perched on stone benches sipped tea from slim waisted glasses served on small brass trays alongside dishes of rock candy. I admit I did not wholly grasp the meaning of his recitation, but there was a welling of feeling inside me that I could not explain.

That autumn morning, far from Normandy, the air in our classroom was warm and musty. The professor was wearing a light blue button-down shirt, bifocals on the tip of his nose. I did not understand every word, but his voice was so beautiful I felt as if I was in Emma Bovary’s bedroom, pacing with Charles, waiting for her to finish dressing. That feeling I could not explain as a child was empathy. By the end of that week, I had changed my major to French (from pre-med!) and the rest is another story.

Agent:

Adam Chromy, Movable Type Management, achromy@movabletm.com, 646-431-6134