Persepolis

"Eleanor: I love Persepolis . It’s a really great memoir by Marjane Satrapi about growing up in Iran , just before and after the Iranian Revolution. It also includes her time when she moves to Europe, she lives in Vienna for a while, and grappling with her Persian-ness, how you deal with a real connection to your home and feeling a part of your culture but, at the same time, what happens when political circumstances put a stop to that. One of the things that Persepolis does really adeptly is show, over time, all the problems that Iran’s had politically. Especially in the West, we have a tendency to say, ‘It got really bad in Iran after the Islamic Revolution. That’s when things became difficult.’ But she’s able to say, ‘My family had a lot of problems with the Shah and that was also bad.’ It shows the complexity of history, that you’re dealing with different issues over time. You can have various forms of repression, but also various forms of communal joy, a real deep connection to your culture and love of that. But there are always going to be some things that are outside of your control. She shows that brilliantly. Neil: She also talks about othering a lot throughout the book, because she’s in lots of different situations. She’s on the fringes of everything. Sometimes it’s within her own family, who love her. It’s also when the Islamic laws come in and she has to conform. Then she goes to Austria to live there and is seen as an ausländer . That dovetails with the previous book, Maus , about othering. These kinds of books are really important to read because they show the human experience for people who are struggling to move between different places. Eleanor: I really love one scene, when she’s first sent to school in Austria and her German is not great. As someone who’s moved around a lot and lived in all sorts of linguistic areas, that staring like a deer in the headlights when someone explains something to you, she does such a great job of showing that process of language acquisition, how you start dealing with and living with other people. There are these small pleasures in it that are so recognizable and absolutely correct. It’s gorgeous. I love that book. Neil: Absolutely. Her artwork is incredible as well. Her use of shapes and flat blacks. It’s black and white. It’s super easy to go through. When I was reading it, I couldn’t put it down. There’s one like that out at the moment, Flamer . I thought I’d read for 10 minutes, just before going to sleep, and a couple of hours later, I’d read the whole thing. In the bargain you end up reading history vicariously."

"I read the book and it was great, but more people saw the film because it was nominated for an Academy Award. And after seeing the movie, so many people I knew came up to me and told me that they thought it was exactly the story of my life. And not just me, but most of my Iranian friends had the same feeling of “Oh God, that could have been me, I could have written that book – it could have been the story of my life and my family, and that’s exactly how I felt in high school.” I think it was so powerful in the most simple and honest kind of way. It’s almost like a children’s story, which makes it even more powerful. I know so many people who have been hugely moved by it. And I love the person who wrote it, and I know her, but I also hate her because I wish I had written that book! If I had a book in me it would be something almost identical to Persepolis. I think she has done an absolutely fantastic job. That’s true. The best thing is that the story is so powerful that she realised she didn’t have to exaggerate it – not in the drawing or the telling. It already had enough juice and it didn’t need any extra flavouring. Sometimes, when I know the truth behind a particular story because I know the author or have had a similar experience, I’ve felt disappointed when it’s exaggerated to get sympathy or present a political point of view. There are times when you don’t need to add any spice to make it interesting to non-Iranians. She did a very interesting interview on a US TV show, at a time when Iran was being talked about as ‘the axis of evil’. The host asked her why she wrote it, and her reply was she wanted Western people to realise that Iranians are not just a bunch of fanatic Muslims. She said something like: “We are ordinary people like you, who like to go to the cinema, listen to Michael Jackson, eat ice-cream and hang out with friends.” And the host very cleverly said in a mock-serious way: “Don’t you realise what a terrible thing you are doing? We Americans don’t want to know that you are human too. Right now we can comfortably preach about what is going to happen to your country, and our government can carry out its policies the way it wants to.”"

"It really gets into the feel of what it was like then, throughout the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. It shows the history of Iran through one person’s life, and the people around her. The author’s family wanted the revolution, which was when the people in Iran revolted against the monarch. Her grandfather was a prince, but he became a communist. They were a pretty well-off family, but they still wanted the Shah to leave. The Shah wasn’t doing a good job of ruling, and I think most people wanted that to change. But they had no idea that Iran would become even more oppressive than before, after becoming an Islamic republic. This graphic novel describes how it got worse and how horrible it was. She is 10 years old at the start of the book. At the end of the book she is 14 and leaves Iran without her parents. There is a second volume about her life in Vienna and her adult life back in Iran. She is looking back at her childhood, so we get a look into her life but also a look into the political story of Iran at that time. There are some traumatic bits so I wouldn’t recommend this graphic novel for people younger than 10 years old. The author did the art herself. It’s quite different to most graphic novels. It’s all black and white. It’s a bit cartoony but still serious."