This ideological environment profoundly shaped Lily’s early worldview. Politics was not an abstraction in the Golestan household—it was a lived reality, discussed daily alongside literature, art, cinema, and philosophy. The family’s political ties also made them vulnerable: surveillance, suspicion, and ideological pressure from both pre- and post-revolutionary authorities would follow them throughout their lives.
Childhood Between Abadan and Tehran
After her birth in Tehran, the family moved to Abadan, where Ebrahim Golestan worked for an oil company. Abadan in the 1940s was a cosmopolitan oil city shaped by both British colonial presence and Iranian labor movements. The contrast between industrial modernity, political unrest, and traditional social structures created a complex sensory and emotional world for young Lily.
Her brother Kaveh Golestan was also born in Abadan. After several years, the family returned to Tehran and settled near the village of Doros in the Shemiran area. There, Ebrahim Golestan built a house that would later become one of the most important cultural salons of pre-revolutionary Iran.
