Tales from an Ordinary Iranian Girlhood
by Marjane Satrapi

Photo by Aslan Arfae

When Marjane Satrapi started working at l'Atelier des Vosges, home to many of France's celebrated new wave comic book artists, she would regale her fellow artists with amazing stories of her family-- stories of dethroned emperors, suicidal uncles, state-sanctioned whippings, and heroes of the revolution-- in short, the details of daily life in contemporary Iran. In listening to her stories, her colleagues kept asking what she was waiting for to put her life down in a comic book. So she did. Persepolis tells the story of Marjane's growing up in Iran in the 1970s and '80s, of living through the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq.It is the story of a

childhood, a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary--beset by the unthinkable, but buffered by an extraordinary and loving family. We pick up the narrative in November 1973 as Marjane, her mother and her father get ready for dinner...

Get excerpts from Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis in the March 2003 issue of Ms.

Persepolis in the News

Growing Up Graphic (Women’s Review of Books 6/2003)

Tempering Rage by Drawing Comics (NY Times 5/21/03)

'Persepolis': A Graphic Novel Recalls the Iranian Revolution (NY Times Book Review 5/11/03)

Veil of Tears (Village Voice 5/2/03)

Bio

Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, excerpted on page 87, was born in 1969 in Rasht, on the edge of the Caspian Sea. Part Azerbaijani, part Turkmen, part Muslim, part Zoroastrian-Iranian, in other words-- she grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the Lycee Francais before leaving for Vienna and, later, Strasbourg to study decorative arts. In 1994, she moved to Paris, where she joined l'Atelier des Vosges, home to many of France's celebrated new wave comic book artists. Persepolis, the storyof her childhood in Iran, has been translated into German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian as well as English. Satrapi is at work on the sequel to Persepolis and contributes illustrations to newspapers and magazines. Persepolis is the Greek name of the capital of the ancient Persian Empire.