Satrapi, Marjane

▪ 2009

born 1969, Rasht, Iran

      In 2008 illustrator and writer Marjane Satrapi had reached a level of worldwide fame that would have seemed unlikely in the 1980s, when she nearly died, homeless, in Vienna; her best-known book, Persepolis, topped one million in sales and was available in two dozen languages. Satrapi's film adaptation of the work was also released on DVD in 2008, a year after it had been nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature.

      Satrapi grew up in Tehran, the only child of Westernized parents. Her father was an engineer and her mother a clothing designer. Satrapi attended the Lycée Français in Tehran, but life became more difficult after the Iranian Revolution of 1979, when her family's Western way of life increasingly drew the attention of Iranian authorities. By 1984 Satrapi's parents had decided to send her to Austria to attend school. A failed relationship there exacerbated her sense of alienation and contributed to a downward spiral that found her living on the streets and using drugs. She returned to Tehran at age 19, studied art, and, after a short-lived marriage, moved back to Europe in 1993. In France she earned a degree in art, and by the mid-1990s she was living permanently in Paris.

      Satrapi began working on Persepolis in 1999. It was published first in France in two volumes, as Persepolis 1 (2000) and Persepolis 2 (2001), which were combined as Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood when translated into English in 2003. The work was described as a graphic memoir, a genre that melds the format of a graphic novel with a prose-only memoir. Through a stripped-down visual style that shows the influence of German Expressionism, Satrapi tells the story of her childhood in Tehran. It is a story that Western readers found at once familiar—a restive adolescent who loves Nike shoes and rock music—and foreign—she is stopped and threatened with arrest for wearing those shoes as she walks through a city damaged by bombing raids during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88).

      Persepolis 3 and Persepolis 4 were published in France in 2002 and 2003, respectively, and were translated together into English as Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return in 2004. Persepolis 2 begins where Persepolis ends, with Satrapi living in Europe so as to experience more safety and freedom than her parents felt Iran could offer. The family friend with whom Satrapi was intended to live instead shuffles her to a boarding house, however, and Satrapi's life gradually dissolves. She returns to Iran but feels out of place, and she eventually leaves again for Europe. Persepolis and Persepolis 2 were praised for their analysis of the gaps and junctures between East and West and for their candour, their engaging narratives, and their humour.

      Satrapi, who wrote in French, continued to probe the boundaries between the graphic novel and the memoir with Broderies (2003; Embroideries) and Poulet aux prunes (2004; Chicken with Plums). The former consists of stories told by Satrapi's mother, grandmother, and other female relatives and friends about their experiences as women living in Iran; the latter recounts the story of her great-uncle, a renowned tar (lute) player who resolves to die when he cannot adequately replace his broken instrument.

J.E. Luebering

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