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French-Iranian author Marjane Satrapi, author of 'Persepolis', dies at 56
- eatonphil 5mo agoThe movie was really beautifully done and I've wanted to read the book itself. Rest in peace.
- the_af 5mo agoThe book is beautiful too, I recommend it.
- fidotron 5mo agoOne of the most surprising things about the movie was how precisely it captured the artistic intent of the book. A serious achievement by those animators.
- frankieg33 5mo agoI didn't realize there was a movie. Thanks for posting so I can check it out. I will second, the graphic novel is excellent. Up there with Maus in terms of showing you a new perspective.
- srean 5mo agoI think the movie came first, at least in the US.
- Schiendelman 5mo agoThe graphic novel in the US was 2003-2004, the film was 2007, unless I'm mistaken.
- srean 5mo agoThanks for the correction. I saw the books in the book stores several months after the movie release. I suppose they were doing a rerun to toe in with the movie's popularity.
- baby 5mo agoI would recommend the book over it
- NordStreamYacht 5mo agoWhat's the connection with France? Even Khomeini was in exile in France until the shah was deposed.
- KomoD 5mo ago> Born Nov. 22, 1969, in Rasht, Iran, and grew up in Tehran. Sent to live in Austria at 14 during the Iran-Iraq war. Returned to Iran after her high school years and attended art school in Tehran. > Left Iran for Europe again at 24 and continued her art studies in Strasbourg, France. > Now lives in Paris as a French citizen. Since publishing "Persepolis," has not been back to Iran. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/18/AR2008011800888.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/0...
- inglor_cz 5mo agoFrance was historically very interested in the Near and Middle East, though colonially somewhat less successful than the UK; Napoleon sailed to Egypt in 1799, and later the French Republic protected Lebanese and Syrian Christians, up to some point in history. People from the Levant still like to study in France (incl. Nassim Nicholas Taleb). Hence, France is considered a strong and culturally developed country in the region. And unlike the UK and US, they had no historic bad blood with Iran (Mossadegh et al.)
- SSLy 5mo agoAnd French is still language of educated class in some places in Levant, esp. Liban.
- Triphibian 5mo agoWhen I lived in Tehran in the late '70s people said "merci" to express thanks.
- tralarpa 5mo agoThey still do.
- EB-BarringtonII 5mo ago[flagged]
- everdrive 5mo ago>Did you ever notice you almost never read anything good about Iran? You can read plenty of good about Iran if you read something other than geopolitical news. It's a very interesting country with an incredibly interesting history and language. The news is a pretty poor source for much of anything except for "events are happening" or "politicians have an agenda in [area]" -- I don't mean to belittle those. Both of those matter, but really no one should consider the news to provide thorough treatment for any large topic.
- EB-BarringtonII 5mo agoI have spent half of the last decade or so on the ground in Iran. You're right the "news" is a very poor source for much of anything about Iran.
- philipallstar 5mo agoI think this is talking about the hyper-oppressive, aggressive government of modern-day Iran, and not how it was pre-Islamic rule.
- everdrive 5mo agoAgreed, and there really is nothing positive to say about the modern-day Iranian government. The Persian culture has not been fully stamped out, though, and I think there is a lot of good there even if proper regime change may not be realistic.
- philipallstar 5mo agoOf course - glad to hear that. The news of all the protest deaths in January is devastating.
- deleted 5mo ago
- aaron695 5mo ago[dead]
- everdrive 5mo agoI always enjoyed the first half of Persepolis. Told from Satrapi's perspective, it was a very relatable story about a young child who was swept up by the world events around her, and tried to rebel in very normal, child-like ways. It was very relatable in that abstract sense, even if most of us have not been through a violent revolution. (and even more violent subsequent war with a neighboring state) The second half of Persepolis was much more difficult for me, and I never know how to feel about it. I think above all else Satrapi deserves a lot of credit for describing herself realistically rather than trying to paint herself as a good person. (not that she was a bad person, but that she didn't shy away from parts of the story that show her in a poor light) I have a lot of respect for her honesty in the second half of the story, however her time in exile in Europe seemed to be one of self-indulgence, meandering, and minor self-destruction. All of which are understandable for someone who has been through such a traumatic turn of events, however it was a bit sad that the young, rebellious child that was so likable did not seem to survive the conflict.
- p-e-w 5mo agoI’ve always wondered how much of the second part is truth and how much is fiction. That a teenage girl from Iran, living by herself in Central Europe with essentially no local connections, would become a drug dealer to her classmates, and on top of that somehow be let off the hook for it by the headmaster, stretches credibility a little bit.
- catigula 5mo ago[flagged]
- p-e-w 5mo agoThis was a very different era, and the author belonged to the educated elite of Iran. Hardly comparable to whatever you’re referring to.
- chmod775 5mo agoI've personally encountered some stories that were pretty much exactly that. Vulnerable young people becoming low level drug dealers (often for lack of other options) isn't exactly a rare story.
- internet_points 5mo agoThe graphic novel was very good, showing what Iran must have felt like to iranians before the revolution, and the sadness at having lost that way of life. I highly recommend reading it.
- p-e-w 5mo agoAt least to the kind of Iranians who were sending their children to French schools, yes. But of course the other kind of people very rarely have someone writing international bestsellers on their behalf, so this is all we’ll get.
- draw_down 5mo ago[dead]
- ndiddy 5mo agoI think it's a very well written personal memoir that shows what the revolution felt like to someone growing up in the Iranian urban upper class. It portrays the revolution as there being a hope for change, prior to religious men with beards and guns inexplicably showing up because that's what did happen from her perspective. I don't see anything necessarily wrong with this. The revolution was split between college-educated urban secular leftists and a much larger portion of religious conservatives, and the latter eclipsed the former so quickly that her viewpoint is probably legitimately what it looked like for her and her family. It doesn't try to do any political analysis of what motivated the Islamists or why they gained power because it's her personal story, it's not trying to be some sort of objective history of the Iranian revolution. I think it does what it set out to do very well, and it's an excellent story of the tragedy of just trading one oppressive dictatorship for another.
- jagaerglad 5mo agoAdding to what you said, it's worth to mention that her novel contains grave historical inaccuracies such that suggesting that the Cinema Rex fire was done by the Shah blocking the exits with police letting everyone burn, and later blamed on Islamists (what the revolutionary zeitgeist at the time wanted to believe), while in fact it was exactly the other way around https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Rex_fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_Rex_fire
- harperlee 5mo ago"Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life" The simple humanity in this candid description brought a small tear to my eyes. I'd say that the classical approach to this is a dry, clinical description of a depression stage, or a description of a how and not a why. Very welcomed in the age of AI slop!
- sometimelurker 5mo agoPersepolis was really good, read it a few years ago. really recommended
- NoSalt 5mo agoDied of "sadness" ... that's incredibly sad. I mean, I know it's possible, but it seems so surreal to hear.
- wslh 5mo agoIt's incomplete without the rest of the sentence: "a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life" Grief is not just metaphorical, severe bereavement can affect health in very real ways.
- agumonkey 5mo agoyes, stress hormones may be one cause and can harm a lot of tissues
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- srean 5mo agoHas there been any study that analyses the frequency of natural death of one shortly after death of his/her partner. How different is that compared to what one would expect assuming statistical independence and based image and health adjusted mortality curves.
- klaussilveira 5mo agoYes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widowhood_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widowhood_effect
- srean 5mo agoThanks.
- rustyhancock 5mo agoDoes it say what happened? Died of sadness did make me wonder about something self inflicted.
- gedy 5mo agoYes, I also took it to be a tactful-as-possible way to say that.
- MattGrommes 5mo agoThat's always a possibility but I've seen my Grandpa die of a broken heart after my Grandma died. The night of her funeral he asked his children if they thought someone could die of a broken heart and after that it took him less than a year to go himself. I'd never considered that saying to be true until then but I watched it happen.
- rurban 5mo agoBesides her groundbeaking Persepolis, I was at the world premiere of The Voices, a wonderful black comedy, and got angry that the stupid distributor buried the film. We all loved it. Fuckers. She had a lot of problems to get her next films financed then.
- tetrisgm 5mo agoPoor woman. Somehow despite growing through hardships, it’s the loss of her husband that broke her. May she be at peace now, and her work cherished.
- customguy 5mo ago> We are focusing on the small details and hiding the misery in the world. Look at the smoker and we miss global warming, war, and the crap we eat--not the bad guys but smoking. I smoke and they talk about cancer, I eat and they talk about cholesterol, I make love, it's AIDS. Before AIDS and cholesterol and cancer there's the pleasure of making love and eating and smoking. I have to die someday, so if the thing that gave me pleasure all of my life kills me instead of me going under a truck, that's fine. Besides, why should I live so that when I die I give fresh meat to the worms? I hope that I am rotted and they don't want to eat me. F@#$ck the worms. -- Marjane Satrapi Maybe a love so great you cannot go on without it is better than no such love. I wish her nothing but peace, but this such a tragic loss for the world. 56 :( Also, fuck sadness. It's a healthy human thing, sure, but so is giving it the middle finger. Take care, all of you, and maybe smile at a person who needs it today, just because fuck sadness.
- letsdelta 5mo agoI will always be grateful to her for so touchingly letting me in to her life, in a special part of the world, at a unique time of it’s existence
- J_Shelby_J 5mo agoI rewatched it recently and it’s still such a good movie. I’ll always remember the outrage I felt when they go to the hospital when her father needs heart surgery and they have to pretend not to know the hospital director because he was previously their janitor and they were afraid to embarrass him by acknowledging that and not getting treatment. Absurdity.
- baby 5mo agoWould recommend reading the comic instead
- baby 5mo agoI read all the persepolis comics a long time ago and to my memory it was the first time I cried reading a comic. A beautiful work of art. I would recommend to anyone reading this comment to order the first book.
- vandahm 5mo agoI read Persepolis in French, and I don't speak French as a native language, so I worry that I missed some of the art and the nuance of it. But, even so, I thought it was beautiful. She was an extremely talented storyteller, and I'm sad that she left us so soon.