Marjane Satrapi, ‘Persepolis’ Author and Director, Dead at 56

Marjane Satrapi, the French Iranian graphic novelist and filmmaker whose 2007 animated feature Persepolis earned an Oscar nomination, has died, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Her cause of death is not public, but a statement from her family noted her death occurred a little over a year after the death of her husband, producer-actor-screenwriter Mattias Ripa, whom her family noted was the “love of her life.” She echoed this sentiment herself in a series of posts on her Instagram page. Satrapi was 56.

The four-volume Persepolis graphic novels, Satrapi’s best-known works to English speakers, were first published in France between 2000 and 2003 and condensed into two English volumes, which arrived in ’03 and ’04. They told the story of a girl growing up in Iran and Austria during the Islamic Revolution. The title referred to the Persian Empire’s onetime capital. The novels ranked Number 10 on Rolling Stone’s list of the 50 Best Non-Superhero Graphic Novels. A blurb praised the novels as “an excellent coming-of-age tale set in a place most Westerners know precious little about.”

She co-directed and co-wrote the animated film adaptation of Persepolis with Vincent Paronnaud. “[The movie] is like nothing you’ve ever seen in animation,” Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers wrote in a review. “It’s a mindblower.” It won the Palm Dog and jury prize at Cannes, tying with Silent Light in the latter category, and in 2008, it was up for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and two BAFTAs but did not win.

Born in Rasht, Iran, on Nov. 22, 1969, Satrapi grew up in Tehran before her family sent her away from the Ayatollah’s violent Islamic Republic to Austria when she was 14. The life of the Marjane character in the graphic novel mirrors Satrapi’s. The author moved to Paris in 1994 and subsequently published the Persepolis tetralogy. It was an immediate hit, much to the chagrin of Iran’s government, which attempted to get the film adaptation banned from the Bangkok International Film Festival, according to THR.
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Satrapi later published Chicken With Plums, a graphic novel that won the Angoulême Best Comic Book Award in 2005. She directed a filmed adaptation of the book in 2011. Her other film works include The Voices, Radioactive, and Dear Paris.

Several of her comics, her preferred term for the medium, were also translated into English: Embroideries, Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon, The Sigh, and Women, Life, Freedom. The last in this list first arrived in France in 2023 and addressed the Mahsa Amini protests of ’22 and ’23 after Amini was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s hijab law.
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She also remained active in politics campaigning for Mir Hossein Mousavi when he lost the Iranian presidential election under questionable circumstances. She also turned down France’s Légion d’honneur, citing France’s relations with Iran. She did accept her place among the Académie des Beaux-Arts, though.

“Her passing marks the loss of a leading figure in French culture and a freedom-loving artist whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international acclaim,” a statement from French president Emmanuel Macron said, according to The New York Times.