A review by blueteacup
The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad

5.0

Persepolis is an extremely interesting and captivating look into life in Iran during and after the revolution.  Satrapi uses political ideology and her graphic art style to paint a picture of what it was like to be a child in a war-torn country, and after that her experience as an immigrant from Southwest Asia in Europe.  

Her socialist leanings lends itself to giving an objective view of the horrors that happened to anyone who was a “threat” to the regime.  She’s not afraid to describe what happens to a Communist young girl before she’s killed for her beliefs, or showing images of people drowned in their own bathtubs.  I appreciated that she didn’t shy away from these graphic descriptions and images when other authors will usually describe things as “unspeakable” and leave it at that, or, worse, describe things in a way that’s meant to be voyeuristic to Western audiences and simultaneously paints Iranaians as both poor and helpless and ruthless and “backwards”.  Her sympathy and love for her country really comes through, even if she is describing horrific scenarios brought on by the government.

Satrapi’s art style lends itself well to the graphic novel medium.  Her simple but still descriptive drawings allow for the novel to be very accessible while still being understandable.  Her expressive depictions of her family, friends and acquaintances paint her life as colourful and full of intrigue.

I really enjoyed this series of graphic novels and would highly recommend them to anyone who wants a better understanding of Iranian history, war and culture, or to anyone who’s interested in auto-biographies of interesting people. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Child death, Death, Misogyny, and Violence

Moderate: Racism and Suicide attempt

There's a very upsetting scene where her Jewish neighbours' house is blown up by a missile while they're there and are killed. It was very upsetting for me as a Jewish person to read, as the reason they were home was because of Shabbat. It shows up in the chapter titled "Shabbat".