Marjane Satrapi Biography

Marjane Satrapi is an Iranian-born French woman, best known for her work as a graphic novelist. She also works as an illustrator, film director and children’s book author. Many of Satrapi’s most celebrated works are largely autobiographical graphic novels. These graphic novels have been widely credited, not solely for their storytelling, but also for the effects they have had in deepening her readers’ knowledge of recent Iranian history. Through film adaptations, her works and her account of late 20th century Iranian history have found even wider audiences, finding substantial critical and box office success worldwide. Satrapi’s works largely focus on her own life and the lives of her family members, taking place both in Iran and in Europe, where she currently lives. Satrapi also works in filmmaking, collaborating in the writing and directing of several films. Her work in film began when she collaborated on the adaptation of one of her own graphic novels into an award-winning film. Much of Satrapi’s early personal life is well-known to her readers, given the emotionally affecting and detailed first-person perspective of her best-known work, ‘Persepolis.’ In addition to details about her own coming-of-age story, Satrapi recounts major historical events from a highly personal perspective.