Yahya Gharagozlou presents "Killing Gilda"

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ABOUT THE BOOK

A beautiful nineteen-year-old named Gilda becomes the mistress of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. She dreams of becoming his wife. The narrator, in love with Gilda, follows clues about her death two years after the affair.

During an assassination attempt on the Shah, he gets shot on the steps of the Marble Palace. As he puts it, "I took a bullet for my king up the ass and got a jester's seat, the best seat, to watch the fall of the Persian Empire."

Killing Gilda is infused with intrigue, but at its heart, it's a love story that follows the best traditions of classics like The Beauty and the Beast. We enter the rarified atmosphere of the court, the young woman's life, and the reasons for her death. We follow the characters through the Paris of Madame Claude, the Shah's ski resort at St. Moritz, and Doctor Pitanguy's plastic surgery clinic in Baden Baden.

The story, with its scheming characters and rare glimpses into Shah's private life, eschews easy labels. The Shah's sexual adventurism didn't stop his liberal policies for women's rights.

Killing Gilda is the story of a woman trapped in a gilded cage. And it's a compelling portrait of a royal dynasty whose fall has profoundly impacted the modern world. The recent women's protests in Iran will heighten interest in the book.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Born in Tehran, Iran, Yahya Gharagozlou left his country in 1979 amidst the Iranian Revolution. He spent his adolescent years in the UK before moving to the United States. He has a Master’s degree in mechanical engineering and holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of New Hampshire. He completed his MBA at the Harvard Extension School Graduate Program. He had a long, successful tenure as Group President, managing a portfolio of industrial and semiconductor companies owned by ITW. He retired to give full time to his lifelong passion for writing. He has published short stories in the Kenyon Review and the Massachusetts Review. His novel 1001 Persiranian Stories of Love and Revenge was a critical success. Yahya lives with his family in Wellesley, Massachusetts.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Marjan Kamali is the award-winning author of The Lion Women of Tehran, an instant national bestseller, The Stationery Shop, a national and international bestseller, and Together Tea, a Massachusetts Book Award finalist. She is a 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship.

Marjan’s novels are published in translation in more than 25 languages (22 languages for The Stationery Shop and 10 languages for Together Tea). Her essays have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Literary Hub, and The Los Angeles Review of Books.

Marjan holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Business Administration from Columbia University, and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from New York University. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, she spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya, and the U.S. Marjan is currently the Fannie Hurst Writer-in-Residence at Brandeis University. She lives in the Boston area with her family.

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