Recommendations of the Editorial team
Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian graphic novel author and filmmaker whose animated film “Persepolis” was nominated for an Oscar in 2007, is dead, the Hollywood Reporter reports. Nothing is known about the cause of death; A statement from her family noted that she died just over a year after the death of her husband, producer, actor and screenwriter Mattias Ripa – whom her relatives described as the “great love of her life”. Satrapi herself had made similar comments in a series of posts on her Instagram account. She was 56 years old.
The four-volume “Persepolis” graphic novel series, Satrapi’s best-known work in the English-speaking world, was published in France between 2000 and 2003 and was condensed into two volumes for the English market, released in 2003 and 2004. They tell the story of a girl who grows up in Iran and Austria during the Islamic Revolution. The title refers to the former capital of the Persian Empire. The series ranked 10th on ROLLING STONE’s list of the 50 best graphic novels outside of the superhero genre. A short review praised the work as “an outstanding coming-of-age story set in a place that most Westerners know next to nothing about.”
Satrapi co-directed the animated film adaptation of “Persepolis” with Vincent Paronnaud and co-wrote the screenplay. “[Der Film] “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen in animation,” wrote Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers in his review. “It will blow your mind.” The film won the Palm Dog and the Jury Prize at Cannes – in the latter category together with “Silent Light” – and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe and two BAFTAs in 2008, but came away empty-handed at all awards.
Childhood and exile
Satrapi was born on November 22, 1969 in Rasht, Iran, and grew up in Tehran before her family sent her to Austria at age 14 to escape the Ayatollah’s violent Islamic Republic. The life of the character Marjane in the graphic novel reflects Satrapi’s own biography. In 1994 the author moved to Paris and subsequently published the “Persepolis” tetralogy. The work was an immediate hit – much to the dismay of the Iranian government, which, according to THR, tried to have the film adaptation banned from the Bangkok International Film Festival.
Satrapi later published Chicken With Plums, a graphic novel that won the 2005 Angoulême Prize for Best Comic Album. In 2011 she directed a film version of the book. Her other directing credits include “The Voices,” “Radioactive” and “Dear Paris.”
Several of her comics – her preferred term for the medium – have also been translated into English: Embroideries, Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon, The Sigh and Women, Life, Freedom. The latest title was initially released in France in 2023 and covers the Mahsa Amini protests of 2022 and 2023, after Amini was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s headscarf law.
Political commitment
Satrapi also remained politically active, campaigning for Mir Hossein Mousavi when he lost the Iranian presidential election under questionable circumstances. France’s Légion d’honneur rejected it, citing the country’s relations with Iran. However, she accepted her place in the Académie des Beaux-Arts.
“Her death marks the loss of an outstanding figure in French culture and a freedom-loving artist whose work carried a universal message and brought her immense international recognition,” the New York Times quotes from a statement by French President Emmanuel Macron.