Persepolis
by Marjane Satrapi
Pantheon Books, 2003
[Challenge # 29 : A graphic novel or comic book.]
I finally got around to reading Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis which served as the graphic novel for this year’s reading challenge. It retread a lot of the ground I had just visited when I read Reading Lolita in Tehran, but I loved it nonetheless. There’s a sequel that I will definitely be reading at some point.
The book is autobiographical, being about the author’s life in Iran as a young girl from the time of the Iranian revolution up to the age of 14. It differs from Lolita in that is told from the viewpoint of a child with no agency and no context for the tumultuous events she lives through. In a way, it book can be described as a female version of Art Speigelman’s Maus – simple childlike illustrations used to tell a more serious political story. Like Maus, it caused a lot of buzz when it came out and was even made into an animated film.
Sample page from the book
I don’t have much more to say except that I loved it and it made me consider doing my own graphic novel at some point.
