BIOGRAPHY
Early Years
Born on November 22, 1969 in Rasht, Iran, Marjane Satrapi was the only child of upper middle class parents. Satrapi came from a long line of Iranian aristocrats; her maternal great-grandfather had been one of the last emperors of Persia in the nineteenth century and one of her uncles had been a prince. She and her family enjoyed an affluent Western lifestyle. Her parents were politcally active Marxists and participated in demonstrations against the shah (Iranian sovereign). They were intellectuals and progressively inclined which encouraged young Satrapi to form her own opinions and question the world around her.
In 1979, Islamic fundamentalists seized power and overthrew the shah, forcing him into exile. Although Satrapi's parents had initially welcomed this revolution, they quickly became demoralized with the establishment of an extremely oppressive regime. The new regime forbid many behaviors that they and other community members regularly enjoyed, such as listening to Western music, wearing Western clothing, playing cards, and consuming alcohol. Even more disheartnenig, the regime also restricted when and where women could go out in public, what activities they could engage in, and imposed new codes of behavior, including the requirement of women to wear veils in public. Those who dared to break the rules or question the regime's authority were severely punished, imprisoned, and even executed.
Satrapi primarily grew up in Tehran and studied at the Lycée Français. She was a rebellious teen who enjoyed punk music and wore Western clothing brands and styles (such as Nike and t-shirts emblazoned with pictures of rock stars). She enjoyed wearing cosmetics and engaged in taboo social activities. She was expelled from school in her early teens after hitting the principal, who had told her she could not wear jewelry. Her parents sent her to Vienna, Austria when she was fourteen in fear that her outspoken nature would attract the attention of the Iranian guards and would have dire consequences. Although Satrapi had expected to live with her mother's good friend in Vienna while she attended high school, the friend had enrolled her in a boarding house run by nuns. However, she was thrown out of the boarding house after confronting her mother superior in response to her making unkind remarks about Iranians. For a while she lived on the streets and sold drugs. Nonetheless, she managed to complete her high school studies and graduate. After those four years in Vienna, Satrapi then returned to Iran for a higher education.
For college, Satrapi attended the Graphic Institute and studied visual communication. She then earned a master's degree in visual communication from the School of Fine Arts at Tehran Azad University. When she was twenty-one, she married a man named Reza, but the marriage ended in divorce about three years later. She then moved to Strasbourg, France, and studied decorative arts. She supported herself by teaching aerobics and language while attending school.
Early Career
Satrapi settled in Paris, France in the mid-1990s. She joined l'Atelier des Vosges, an underground group of new wave comic book artists. She would often entertain them with tales of her childhood in Iran and life in Vienna. Following frequent encouragements from the other artists to create a comic book to tell her stories, she began drawing in 1999. This resulted in the creation of a graphic memoir of her childhood, Persepolis. Persepolis was published in four installations (two in the US), with the first graphic novel titled Persepolis 1.
Shortly after it hit bookstores, Persepolis became a best seller in France which lead to its translation into English and several other languages. Subsequently, the book became a best seller in the U.S. and several other countries, thrusting Satrapi into the limelight. Nonetheless, the coming of age story in a repressive regime intrigued people (especially as political events in the early twenty-first century drew attention on Iran and Islamic fundamentalism). Satrapi continued to explore the boundaries between the graphic novel and the memoir with Broderies (2003; Embroideries), which consists of stories told by Satrapi’s mother, grandmother, and other female relatives and friends about their experiences as women living in Iran. Published in 2004, Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with Plums; film 2011) recounts the story of her great-uncle, a renowned tar (lute) player who resolves to die when he cannot adequately replace his broken instrument.
Just as it seems that her memoir, Persepolis, famed her as an author, the novel actually kick-started her career as a director as well. When Hollywood expressed interest in bringing Satrapi's story to the big screen, Satrapi was doubtful as she recalled Not Without My Daughter, a 1991 movie which depicted Iranians as crude and backward. Unwilling to risk Hollywood directors creating a movie that portrayed Iranians inaccurately, Satrapi decided to direct the movie herself. She enlisted her good friend, Vincent Paronnaud as a co-director and co-scriptwriter, raised $8 million dollars, and hired a team of ninety animators. The French-language film, titled Persepolis, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007. Just like the novels, the film created an immense impression and won the Cannes Film Festival's special jury prize. An English version of the film also followed, and in 2008, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. The film was also nominated for numerous other awards both in the US and Europe, including the Annie Awards, Golden Globe, European Film Award, Bodil Award, and Independent Spirit Award.
Satrapi was in great demand following the release of the film and she toured more than twenty cities in the US, speaking at colleges, universities, libraries, and other venues. During her talks she emphasized that her film and novels are not political statements about Iran and that her story could be any person's story in a country with a dictator or extremist ruler. She repeatedly has stressed that it is her role as an artist to ask questions, not to answer them. She also has said that her greatest reward is to hear people laughing when they watch her movie.
Personal Life
Satrapi has contributed illustrations to various newspapers and magazines, such as The New York Times. She has created posters and even a mural for the Center of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain.
She is a longtime volunteer for the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and an avid Bruce Lee fan. Satrapi took karate for three years, earning a green belt. She also maintains her enjoyment of Western music, even frequenting an Iranian disco in Paris and listening to the music of a favorite musician, Iggy Pop (whose voice played the character of her uncle in the movie Persepolis). She also designed an album cover for a limited-edition Iggy Pop CD. She speaks six languages: Farsi, French, German, Italian, English, and Swedish.
Satrapi is currently married to a Swedish man and the couple resides in Paris. She has not been back to Iran since her first book was published in 2000, stating that she feels it would not be safe for her there after her criticism of the regime.
Born on November 22, 1969 in Rasht, Iran, Marjane Satrapi was the only child of upper middle class parents. Satrapi came from a long line of Iranian aristocrats; her maternal great-grandfather had been one of the last emperors of Persia in the nineteenth century and one of her uncles had been a prince. She and her family enjoyed an affluent Western lifestyle. Her parents were politcally active Marxists and participated in demonstrations against the shah (Iranian sovereign). They were intellectuals and progressively inclined which encouraged young Satrapi to form her own opinions and question the world around her.
In 1979, Islamic fundamentalists seized power and overthrew the shah, forcing him into exile. Although Satrapi's parents had initially welcomed this revolution, they quickly became demoralized with the establishment of an extremely oppressive regime. The new regime forbid many behaviors that they and other community members regularly enjoyed, such as listening to Western music, wearing Western clothing, playing cards, and consuming alcohol. Even more disheartnenig, the regime also restricted when and where women could go out in public, what activities they could engage in, and imposed new codes of behavior, including the requirement of women to wear veils in public. Those who dared to break the rules or question the regime's authority were severely punished, imprisoned, and even executed.
Satrapi primarily grew up in Tehran and studied at the Lycée Français. She was a rebellious teen who enjoyed punk music and wore Western clothing brands and styles (such as Nike and t-shirts emblazoned with pictures of rock stars). She enjoyed wearing cosmetics and engaged in taboo social activities. She was expelled from school in her early teens after hitting the principal, who had told her she could not wear jewelry. Her parents sent her to Vienna, Austria when she was fourteen in fear that her outspoken nature would attract the attention of the Iranian guards and would have dire consequences. Although Satrapi had expected to live with her mother's good friend in Vienna while she attended high school, the friend had enrolled her in a boarding house run by nuns. However, she was thrown out of the boarding house after confronting her mother superior in response to her making unkind remarks about Iranians. For a while she lived on the streets and sold drugs. Nonetheless, she managed to complete her high school studies and graduate. After those four years in Vienna, Satrapi then returned to Iran for a higher education.
For college, Satrapi attended the Graphic Institute and studied visual communication. She then earned a master's degree in visual communication from the School of Fine Arts at Tehran Azad University. When she was twenty-one, she married a man named Reza, but the marriage ended in divorce about three years later. She then moved to Strasbourg, France, and studied decorative arts. She supported herself by teaching aerobics and language while attending school.
Early Career
Satrapi settled in Paris, France in the mid-1990s. She joined l'Atelier des Vosges, an underground group of new wave comic book artists. She would often entertain them with tales of her childhood in Iran and life in Vienna. Following frequent encouragements from the other artists to create a comic book to tell her stories, she began drawing in 1999. This resulted in the creation of a graphic memoir of her childhood, Persepolis. Persepolis was published in four installations (two in the US), with the first graphic novel titled Persepolis 1.
Shortly after it hit bookstores, Persepolis became a best seller in France which lead to its translation into English and several other languages. Subsequently, the book became a best seller in the U.S. and several other countries, thrusting Satrapi into the limelight. Nonetheless, the coming of age story in a repressive regime intrigued people (especially as political events in the early twenty-first century drew attention on Iran and Islamic fundamentalism). Satrapi continued to explore the boundaries between the graphic novel and the memoir with Broderies (2003; Embroideries), which consists of stories told by Satrapi’s mother, grandmother, and other female relatives and friends about their experiences as women living in Iran. Published in 2004, Poulet aux prunes (Chicken with Plums; film 2011) recounts the story of her great-uncle, a renowned tar (lute) player who resolves to die when he cannot adequately replace his broken instrument.
Just as it seems that her memoir, Persepolis, famed her as an author, the novel actually kick-started her career as a director as well. When Hollywood expressed interest in bringing Satrapi's story to the big screen, Satrapi was doubtful as she recalled Not Without My Daughter, a 1991 movie which depicted Iranians as crude and backward. Unwilling to risk Hollywood directors creating a movie that portrayed Iranians inaccurately, Satrapi decided to direct the movie herself. She enlisted her good friend, Vincent Paronnaud as a co-director and co-scriptwriter, raised $8 million dollars, and hired a team of ninety animators. The French-language film, titled Persepolis, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007. Just like the novels, the film created an immense impression and won the Cannes Film Festival's special jury prize. An English version of the film also followed, and in 2008, it was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film. The film was also nominated for numerous other awards both in the US and Europe, including the Annie Awards, Golden Globe, European Film Award, Bodil Award, and Independent Spirit Award.
Satrapi was in great demand following the release of the film and she toured more than twenty cities in the US, speaking at colleges, universities, libraries, and other venues. During her talks she emphasized that her film and novels are not political statements about Iran and that her story could be any person's story in a country with a dictator or extremist ruler. She repeatedly has stressed that it is her role as an artist to ask questions, not to answer them. She also has said that her greatest reward is to hear people laughing when they watch her movie.
Personal Life
Satrapi has contributed illustrations to various newspapers and magazines, such as The New York Times. She has created posters and even a mural for the Center of Contemporary Art in Barcelona, Spain.
She is a longtime volunteer for the International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) and an avid Bruce Lee fan. Satrapi took karate for three years, earning a green belt. She also maintains her enjoyment of Western music, even frequenting an Iranian disco in Paris and listening to the music of a favorite musician, Iggy Pop (whose voice played the character of her uncle in the movie Persepolis). She also designed an album cover for a limited-edition Iggy Pop CD. She speaks six languages: Farsi, French, German, Italian, English, and Swedish.
Satrapi is currently married to a Swedish man and the couple resides in Paris. She has not been back to Iran since her first book was published in 2000, stating that she feels it would not be safe for her there after her criticism of the regime.