Meet Marjane Satrapi

The creator of Persepolis is a survivor of a conflicted nation. Yet like most survivors recalling horrible moments she inserted a good sense of humor. Marjane Satrapi delivered her stories successfully by exploring her childhood and covering the emotions during the most critical points of her life. But who is Ms. Satrapi? And is she close to her graphic memoir counterpart? This post is both a character study and a biography of Ms. Satrapi so expect both interpretations and facts about Satrapi to collide.

When you were a kid, did you ever idolize anyone? Did you dream of becoming great, powerful and influential? That's what Satrapi did: she idolized communist rebels such as Che Guevera who fought to end imperialism (not heeding the fact he killed many people to do it). Satrapi desired to become a prophet, to be "...justice, law and the wrath of god all in one." Those dreams dissolved once the revolution was over; Satrapi appeared to lose her faith in god after her uncle Anoosh was executed for being a communist.

Satrapi, though fairly precocious and good hearted as a kid, had her dark side during her childhood love affair with communism. She whipped up a mob of kids to follow her in a pursuit of a boy whose father executed communists armed with nails. I was thinking "What a brat! She reminds me too much of girls who would do that, manipulating people for all the wrong reasons!" Yet she is harshly lectured by her mother with the question of how she would like it if her ears were nailed to the walls. "Wow," said young Satrapi. "It would hurt a lot." So I was "All right, Satrapi was a kid even though she repeats what she hears!" Satrapi appeared aware (and embarassed) of this fact, writing the dialogue and story with the perspective of a child in mind. Satrapi was just your average Iranian girl living on the eve of the revolution while indulging in punk metal, Kim Wilde and the idyllic childhood dreams we used to have.

The violence depicted in the book is cartoonish like the book itself, which was appropriate suiting her experiences growing up. People are depicted whipping themselves, being cut and shot in darkly humorous was which are not darkly funny at all. There was one scene at the end of Persepolis masking the horror of violence intentionally because Satrapi saw it with her own eyes. At a house where a Jewish family lived, Satrapi saw a bracelet, most likely attached to an arm. But Satrapi never confirmed what was attached to the bracelet, leaving the idea to the reader:

"I saw a turqouise bracelet. It was Neda's. her aunt had given it to her for her fourteenth birthday. The bracelet was still attached to...I don't know what...No scream in the world could have relieved my suffering and my anger."

No cartoony bloody limbs showed, no teenage Satrapi going crazy in the image. The effect of the author as a teenager holding a hand to her mouth and bowing down in horror was enough to tell us. Satrapi probably did not want to recount the whole experience herself. Not all of us will ever figure out what it was like to live in a country undergoing a revolution and into a theocracy but we can imagine the horror behind a person's eyes.

Let's focus on the biographical standpoint. Satrapi was born in Tehran, Iran with parents who were part of communist and socialist circles (which explains her tastes for Guevera as a kid). Much like her comic book self, Satrapi witnessed person freedomes becoming squelched by the Islamic revolution in Iran. When Satrapi was 14, she was sent to Vienna, Austria so she did not have to live through more turbulent conflict that followed. She completed her high school years in Vienna and went to college in Iran. Satrapi studied Visual Communications, eventually obtaining a Master's Degree from the School of Fine Arts in Tehran Islamic Azad University. She moved to Strasbourg, France. Satrapi borrowed the art style she used in Persepolis from David B., a French comic book artist. Satrapi currently resides in Paris where she is an illustrator and author of children's books.

On an interesting note, Satrapi is a great-granddaughter of Nasser al-Din Shah, though Satrapi comments that "...the kings of the Qajar dynasty...had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don't know, ten to fifteen thousand princes and princesses. There's nothing extremely special about that."

On a personal note, any girl who listens to Iron Maiden and punk/metal overall would have been my pick as a teenage boy. Today, I would find Ms. Satrapi rather attractive for having listened to Iron Maiden, Iggy Pop and putting together a highly acclaimed graphic memoir!

- Kristopher