Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi | Introduction & Overview

Persepolis: the Story of a Childhood Introduction

A major achievement in comics narrative, Marjane Satrapi's first major work Persepolis debuted in France in 2000 to great fanfare. The first two French volumes were translated and reprinted together in the American volume Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood in 2003. Named after the capital city of the Persian Empire, the book is an autobiographical tale set during the Islamic Revolution of Iran and the Iran-Iraq War in the 1970s and 1980s, told through a series of comics. It illustrates how civil strife within the country was as damaging, if not more so, than threats from abroad. Persepolis also dispels the one-dimensional stereotypes of Iran and Iranians, providing a complex picture of life under the regimes of both the Shah of Iran and the Ayatollah Khomeini.

Satrapi's unique position as a descendent of Persian royalty influences the narration, making it less a history and more a memoir in...
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