Key themes
- Growing up between two revolutions — Iranian and personal
- The child's perspective on political catastrophe
- Exile, identity and the country you carry with you
About this book
A girl grows up during and after the Iranian revolution; a witty, moving graphic memoir.
Published in French in 2000-03, Persepolis draws directly on Satrapi's own childhood in Tehran through the Islamic Revolution and her teenage years in Vienna. The Anglophone edition became a school and university staple.
Discussion questions
- Satrapi tells her story in simple, stark black-and-white images. How does the graphic memoir form serve a story about the Iranian Revolution — and what does it capture that prose alone could not?
- Young Marji has a direct relationship with God that disappears as she grows older. What is Satrapi saying about the loss of childhood faith — and about the Islamic Republic's effect on private religious life?
- The novel shows both the suffering caused by the regime and the texture of ordinary Iranian life. How does Satrapi insist on the complexity of Iranian culture against Western stereotypes?
- Marji is sent to Europe for her safety and spends years as an outsider in both Iran and Europe. How does Satrapi show the specific loneliness of the person who belongs nowhere?
- Persepolis is widely studied in schools and universities, often as an introduction to Iranian history and graphic memoir as a form. What makes it particularly effective as an educational text?
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