Marjane Satrapi
1 book analyzed
Biography
Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran, to a progressive, educated family with royal and revolutionary lineage. She grew up in Tehran, was sent to Vienna at fourteen, struggled with homesickness and displacement (the subject of Persepolis 2), returned to Iran briefly, then settled in Paris permanently. She drew Persepolis in French, the language of her adult intellectual life, not Farsi, the language of her childhood — a decision that shapes the memoir's tone in ways she has discussed in interviews. Persepolis was first published as a series of four graphic novel volumes in France (2000–2003), collected in English in 2003. It has since been translated into over forty languages and adapted into an Academy Award-nominated animated film (2007). Satrapi has continued making films, artwork, and advocacy for Iranian human rights.