Titan of Tehran: From Jewish Ghetto to Corporate Colossus to Firing Squad - My Grandfather's Life - Softcover
Synopsis
“An important testament to the hopes and disillusionment of Iran’s Jewish community.”
“Elghanayan’s research is meticulous.”
--The Washington Post
“A portrait of Iran’s tumultuous history, viewed through the lens of one family’s tragedy, triumphs and joys.”
--Vanity Fair, “9 Books We Couldn’t Put Down This Month,” Feb 2022
“Meticulously well-researched.”
“A heartening act of love.”
--The Jewish Journal
“For her readers, she has given something larger, a sense of what the worldwide Jewish community lost when Iran fell.”
“Impossible to stop reading.”
--Jewish Book Council
“Titan of Tehran,” a richly reported and elegantly rendered story, presents a compelling central character, historic sweep and moments that read like chapters in a thriller.
The titan is Habib Elghanian – a self-made industrialist and the foremost Jew of his time in Iran, whom the Islamic theocracy targeted as the first civilian executed during the 1979 revolution. With Iran continuing to generate front-page news, his previously untold story is painfully relevant, shedding light on that country's persistent economic, political and social problems. “Titan of Tehran” brings that great, ancient, now-compromised nation into fresh and accessible focus.
The odyssey of Elghanian’s life and death is told by his granddaughter in an understated style that nonetheless makes clear her powerful stake and personal place in the unfolding drama. Exploring universal themes of loss and longing, belonging and identity, she reconstructs and chronicles his ascent from Tehran’s Jewish quarter – “the edge of the pit” – to his business success that was instrumental in modernizing the country to fatefully facing a firing squad.
“Titan of Tehran” serves as a monument to a man who might have disappeared in the mists of history, even though his execution was reported worldwide on newspaper front pages and in broadcast news reports. In his homeland, Elghanian was misrepresented, mistreated, maligned and murdered – but now won’t be forgotten. He is a riveting character whom readers will keep in their hearts – a titan, yes, but deeply, sadly, delightfully human, too.
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