Marjane Satrapi 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 Lycée Français, before leaving for Vienna and, later, Strasbourg to study Decorative Arts.
In 1997, Satrapi moved to Paris, where she met Christophe Blain, who brought her into l’Atelier des Vosges, home to many of France’s celebrated “new wave” of comic book artists. There, she regaled 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. After listening to her stories and seeing her drawings, they kept asking why she was waiting to put her life in the pages of a comic book.
Persepolis tells the story of Marjane Satrapi’s youth in Iran in the 1970s and 80s, of living through the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq. It is a book about childhood, a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary—beset by the unthinkable, but buffered by an extraordinary and loving family. Persepolis was published in four volumes in France, where it met with enormous critical acclaim, garnered comparisons to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and won several prestigious comic book awards (Prix Alph’art Coup de Coeur at Angoulême, Prix du Lion in Belgium, Prix Alph’art du meilleur scénario, and the Prix France Info). Persepolis has been translated into German, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian, among other languages. The work is published as two volumes in the United States: Persepolis and Persepolis 2. It was chosen by the Young Adult Library Association as one of its recommended titles for all students (the list is revised every 5 years and used by educators and librarians across the country), and also named as one of the “100 Best Books of the Decade” by The Times (London). Marjane Satrapi’s other books include Embroideries and her latest adult book, Chicken with Plums (fall 2006). Satrapi is also the author of several children’s books, including Monsters are Afraid of the Moon.
Marjane Satrapi lives in Paris, where her illustrations appear regularly in newspapers and magazines. he animated film adaptation of Persepolis (US release December 2007) has garnered huge international acclaim and won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival; in 2008 it was nominated for an Academy Award for “Best Animated Feature Film.” She is currently working on a feature film based on one of her other books. In summer of 2010, filming will start on Waiting for Azrael (with actor Mathieu Amalric), a film adapted from Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken with Plums.
Courtesy of The Steven Barclay Agency