This graphic novel was recently made into a French film, but I haven’t watched it yet because no subtitled copy is available. Here’s a description of the comics:

“In Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi has written and illustrated a personalized account of growing up in Iran that provides a refreshing counterpoint to the often slick pedantry of alarmist cultural profiling that major cable news networks love to feed the American public. Satrapi herself had stated that her graphic memoir grew out of that very need to provide Iran with a more intimate narrative distinct from the unilaterally negative stories that have served as the Western world’s public image of Iran.

This is not to say she indulges in the saccharine and sanitized demeanor of tourist-trap literature—far from it. Her recollections of growing up under the politically oppressive regime of the 1979 Iranian Revolution engenders sometimes sad, sometimes tender, sometimes funny, sometimes chilling, but always compelling moments born out the intersection of her private and public life. The people of Iran, rather than becoming documentary subjects, become humanized through her telling, particularly because she is so generous in giving voice to each “character” with a life distinct from her own.

And with her own voice, she rewards her readers with an unapologetic portrayal of her own precocious childhood, infused with a dizzying concoction of charm, wonder, and yes, even the occasional pettiness that are the hallmarks of childhood development. Some of the most profound moments arise from the discomfiting invasions of a more brutal reality into her childhood musings.

Case in point, she had learned as a child from her father’s friend, a former political prisoner, that the seemingly benign household items like the iron could also be used as an instrument of torture. While she allows the character of her childhood to feel the appropriate shock and sympathy for her father’s friend, she doesn’t hesitate to portray the quirky egocentricities of a child that wishes that she could brag about her own father being tortured as a kind of political martyr.

Ms. Satrapi’s style of drawing opts for a storybook appearance rather than realism, which frames the feelings and intentions of each person that become immediate to the reader. This comes at the cost of providing detailed settings that could locate us more vividly in the Iran she knew. However, this is ultimately forgivable, since her interest lies more in the people than the place itself. In fact, her framed illustrations resemble the wide-eyed bas-reliefs and sculptures familiar to ancient Mesopotamian culture, which also seem to boldly announce personhood.

Throughout her book one finds such evidence that Ms. Satrapi seeks grounding in her Persian cultural forebears. Even the title Persepolis refers to the ceremonial capital of ancient Persia, most tellingly burned and pillaged by the incursion of Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. In light of contemporary representations of Iran by the West, Satrapi provides an apt metaphor in the ruins of Persepolis. More pointed is the fact that “Persepolis” is the Greek name that remains extant while the Persian wording Parsa remains little used, at least for Westerners. Perhaps it also serves paradoxically as her homage to the West, which provided her the means to express what her own government would likely condemn.

It is a difficult task to reclaim labels perpetrated by the more powerful, whether one’s own government or foreign powers, but Ms. Satrapi has followed her artistic vision with the moral dedication to resist such monolithic forces. This is the reader’s chance to know a nation not by rhetoric or rote, but by a conscientious woman with a story to tell about real people.”

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