Persepolis

This is an autobiographic story told in a graphic format.  The events in the story are events that Marjane (Marji) Satrapi went through herself. She was ten years old and it is year after the Islamic Revolution. Females are now enforced to wear the veil and are segregated from the boys at school. Marji starts studying revolutions and becomes very anti-authoritarian. She has problems in school and is very outspoken on rights. She wants to protest but she can’t due to her age. Marji reads everything that she can about her country’s history and is shocked that she doesn’t know much about it. Her grandmother informs her that her great- grandfather overthrew the Shah. Majri’s family cannot leave Iran because the relationship between Iran and the U.S. are heating up. So they go on a vacation to Spain and come back when war has broken out. Marji loses family and friends in her neighborhood due to the bombings. Throughout the war Marji loses her trust with the government and starts to rebel in her own ways.  She listens to punk rock, smokes her first cigarette and continues to be head strong in her beliefs. She grows very rebellious and is threatened to be arrested for music and western beliefs. Marji eventually gets expelled from school so her family decides to send her to Austria to attend school.

I found this book very interesting. It depicts the life of what women and men would go through during the Islamic Revolution and the rights of women, religion and rebellion. I thought it was neat how Satrapi tells her early life in black and white comic strips.

Satrapi, M. (2004). Persepolis: The story of a childhood. New York: Pantheon

Special Note: Here is the second part of Satrapi life.