Satrapi, M. (2003). Persepolis:
the story of a childhood. NY: Pantheon.
The
book is a graphic memoir that illustrates Marjane Satrapi’s understanding of
her childhood in Iran during the late 70’s and 80’s. She tells her life of how it was growing up in
Tehran during the Islamic Revolution. She
conveys about the history of the leaderships of Iran over the centuries. She
goes from a liberal French school to having to wear a veil in a religious
school. She is the great granddaughter of one of Iran’s last emperors and her
parents are Marxist revolutionaries. They go to demonstrations and Marji always
wants to go with them. Once, her mom had a picture taken and she was so scared
she even had to dye her hair. As the Revolution continues, Marji’s friends and
family are prisoned, injured, and even killed by the new regime for standing up
for their beliefs. When a missile kills Neda Baba-Levy, a close friend, Marji
becomes a rebel that is not scared of anything. She wears jewelry, hits her
principal, and is expelled from school. Her parents fear that Marji will be
imprisoned if she continues with her rebel ways. They send her away to boarding
school in Austria to keep her safe. They definitely preferred for her to be far
away and happy than close and miserable.
The biggest
characteristic showed in this book is conflict. It demonstrates it by the way
it is written in a very powerful voice. We can see that the main character
experiences conflict in many ways through out her life. For example, conflict
with herself when she loses faith in God, and at the end when she becomes
rebellious, and her parents decide to send her somewhere safe. Many difficult
and agonizing issues are also dealt with in this book, including torture and
death. The unique illustrations definitely make the novel come to life.
Nowadays, these books are very popular amongst students and easier to
understand. In result, this book would be
an excellent support for a unit on the Middle East in Social Studies classes.
Interview with
author:
Book
trailer:
Other books by the author.
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