Born in the part of Iran overlooking the Caspian Sea, Marjane Satrapi made her mark with Persepolis – a graphic novel that depicts in a very humorous way the story of her life and country, in the period amidst the fall of Shah Pahlavi and the establishment of Khomeinist theocracy. Persepolis is the first autobiographical comic about Iranian history. Satrapi wrote it with the intention of “being able to respond to the prejudices against my country without being interrupted”. Persepolis (from the Greek name of the ancient “city of the Persians” founded in 520 b.C.) is the saga of an Iranian family living in Tehran between 1960 and 1990.

Marjane grew up in a family of noble origin and was educated according to progressive principles, with an openness to Enlightenment and Marxist theories. In Tehran, she attended the French Lycée until the age of 15, when, to escape the oppressive and extremist climate under Khomeini’s regime, her parents “made her emigrate” to Wien. There, she attended high school and experienced firsthand the frustrations of prejudice and racism.

In 1988, at the age of nineteen, at the end of the war against Iraq, Marjane decided to return home to reunite with her beloved family. In Tehran, she attended the Faculty of Fine Arts, where learning to draw meant copying models covered by the chador from head to toe.

After completing her studies, at the age of twenty-two, Marjane decided to flee once again from the censorship climate of her country. She first moved to Strasbourg to study art, and then to Paris. In the French capital she joined the Atelier des Vosges, a group of comic strip authors who gave rise to the avant-garde movement known as the Nouvelle bande dessinée. Persepolis was born during these years, specifically in 2001. The story follows the life of a little girl – her toys, her first days of school, the first approach to music and rock – unfolding amidst the rise of the Islamic fundamentalism all over the Middle East, in a city ravaged by war and political persecutions. In response to the integralist impositions, little Marjane opposes the value of human integrity instilled in her by her family – particularly by her grandmother, a key figure in her life – as well as through her grandfather and uncle’s experiences, both of whom died in prison defending their ideals of justice. Despite the dramatic nature of the events, everything is filtered through the naïve yet ironic eyes of Marjane, first as a child and later as a young woman.

Through her narration of Iran, Satrapi makes us reflect about those behaviours related to superficiality, prejudice, appearances and conformity which can lead to identify a country, a whole civilization, with certain extreme, dramatic and reprehensible aspects of its recent history. In this context, the use of the veil, seen in the West as the ultimate symbol of female subjugation, is regarded by Marjane as merely one facet of the bigger issue of repression and the lack of freedom of speech and thought under the Iranian regime.

Satrapi’s success lies in her simple and immediate drawing style, intentionally naïve and at times basic, yet always effective. The story becomes universal thanks to the abstraction created by the use of black and white and the simplicity of human figures. The graphic novel format manages to synthetize cultural peculiarities, allowing it to communicate with different cultures and age groups.

After Persepolis (2001) Marjane published Embroderies (2003) and Chicken with Plums (2004), which won the Best Album Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival.

In 2008 Persepolis was adapted into an animated film, written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud.

The fortunate collaboration between these two comics artists, who shared the same workspace for three years – an animation studio with a staff of more than 50 people – brought forth a vivid, moving “cartoon”.

A result made possible also thanks to the constant presence and involvement of Marjane, who, to help the cartoonists, literally acted the personality of the 600 characters to be represented. Drawn entirely by hand, following the most traditional techniques to recreate the typical comic style, the film received an Oscar nomination in 2008 and was released in France, Italy, and the USA.

Today, Satrapi lives and works in Paris where she collaborates with several magazines and newspapers («The New Yorker», «The New York Times», «Internazionale»), writes, and illustrates children’s books.


Translated by Cecilia Chiarelli.