Persepolis

 
Author : Marjane Satrapi

Title : Persepolis

Publ Info : London : Vintage, 2008

Call No. : 741.5954 Sa835P 2008

Summary :

Wise, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, "Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood" tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-granddaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour, and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary, beset by the unthinkable and yet buffered by an extraordinary and loving family, is immensely moving. It is also very beautiful; Satrapi's drawings have the power of the very best woodcuts. Persepolis ends on a cliffhanger in 1984, just as fourteen-year-old Marjane is leaving behind her home in Tehran, escaping fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in the West. In Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return we follow our young, intrepid heroine through the next eight years of her life: an eye-opening and sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna, followed by a supremely educational and heartwrenching four years back home in Iran. Just as funny and heartbreaking as its predecessor - with perhaps an even greater sense of the ridiculous inspired by life in a fundamentalist state - Persepolis 2 is also as clear-eyed and searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism and its cost to the human spirit. In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life and growing into adulthood - here compounded by being an outsider both abroad and at home, and by living in a state where you have no right to show your hair, wear make-up, run in public, date, or question authority - it's raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.

Lecturers' Book Review : " Persepolis "
Recommended By : Ms Winne Wong

 
Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis is a bittersweet autobiographical tale about her childhood. The story begins when Marjane was 10, a year after the Islamic Revolution—a religious revolution which puts veils over Iranian women's faces, bans bilingual and co-ed education, and outlaws alcohol, parties and Western music in the once highly westernized country--began in Iran. The young and intrepid Marjane harbours two passions—the Islamic religion, and politics. She is convinced that she is the last prophet in the galaxy, and is in constant communication with God himself; upon discovering her identity as a royal descendent, she takes the mission of changing the world into a better place upon herself, and begins reading incessantly about politics. Satrapi witnessed the turbulent years in which innocent lives got taken away by curable medical conditions because of the country's closed-door policy; patriotic political activists got executed because their views are in variance with the theocratic government's. Amidst the political unrests, the influence of her bold and loving grandmother who adheres to honesty and integrity, and the teaching and sacrifices of her supportive, intellectual parents who send their only child abroad to keep her safe and her spirit intact, Satrapi goes through many ups and downs in life before she finds her identity as a Iranian, as a woman and as herself.
She also finds freedom, finally. But at what price?

"The goodbye were much less painful than ten years before when I embarked for Austria: there was no longer a war, I was no longer a child, my mother didn't faint and my grandmother was there, happily…happily, because since the night of September 9, 1994, I only saw her again once, during the Islamic New Year in March 1995, she died January, 4, 1996…Freedom had a price…"