PERSEPOLIS
The
Story of a Childhood
by
Marjane Satrapi
“Brilliant and unusual.”
--Vogue
“You've never seen anything like PERSEPOLIS.”
--Gloria Steinem
“Part history book, part Scheherazade, astonishing as only true
stories can be.”
--Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango
Street and Caramelo
“A superb piece of work.”
--Philip Pullman, author of The Golden Compass, The Subtle
Knife, and The Amber Spyglass.
“The most anticipated [comic book] of the season.”
--Publishers Weekly
“A powerful, mysterious, enchanting story that manages to reflect a
great swath of Iranian contemporary history within the sensitive, intimate tale
of a young girl’s coming-of-age. I
didn’t want it to end!”
--Diana Abu-Jaber, author of Crescent and Arabian Jazz
“I cannot praise enough Satrapi’s moving account of growing up as a
spirited young girl in revolutionary and wartime Iran.”
-- Joe Sacco, author of Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde
“Frequently moving and often
hysterical.”
--Book Magazine: “The
Newcomers: Ten to Watch in 2003”
PERSEPOLIS:
The Story of a Childhood
(Pantheon Books/April 29, 2003/$17.95) brilliantly recounts author Marjane
Satrapi’s childhood in Iran in the 1970s and 80s through simple yet powerful
drawings and words.
From the opening pages of PERSEPOLIS—where Satrapi describes what it felt like when, as a
schoolgirl, she was forced to wear a veil after the Shah was dethroned and an
Islamic regime took power—we are introduced to a pint-size heroine of enormous
strength and spirit. The unique voice
and perspective that only a child could provide, as Satrapi tells her tale from
the age of six to fourteen, paints an unforgettable portrait of a country in
turmoil.
The daughter of Marxist intellectuals and the
great-granddaughter of a former Persian emperor, Satrapi’s childhood is at once
outrageous and ordinary—beset by the unthinkable, punctured by the Islamic
Revolution and the war with Iraq, yet buffered by an extraordinary and loving
family. She describes what it was like
to bear witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her
country. Her depiction of life in
Tehran reinforces the contradictions between private and public life in a
country plagued by political upheavals, while her childlike naiveté imparts a
poignancy to this account of dethroned emperors, state-sanctioned beatings, and
heroes of the revolution.
Says Satrapi, “[Iran] has been discussed mostly in
connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism. As an Iranian who has lived more than half
my life in Iran, I know this image is far from the truth…. I don’t want those
Iranians who lost their lives in prisons defending freedom, who died in the war
against Iraq, who suffered under various repressive regimes, or who were forced
to leave their families and flee their homeland to be forgotten. One can forgive but one should never
forget.”
In the same way that Art Spiegelman’s Maus became a classic work in its genre,
PERSEPOLIS is certain to take a
similar place in literary history.
About
the Author:
Marjane Satrapi was
born in 1969 in Rasht, on the edge of the Caspian Sea. She grew up in Tehran, where she studied at
the lycée français, before leaving for Vienna and, later, Strasbourg to study
Decorative Arts. From 1989-1994 she returned
to her homeland to attain a Masters Degree in Visual Communication from the
School of Fine Arts in Tehran. In 1994,
she moved to Paris, where she currently resides.
PERSEPOLIS
Marjane
Satrapi
Pantheon
Books
April
29, 2003/$17.95
0-375-42230-7