Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi
Born	22 November 1969 (1969-11-22) (age 41) Rasht, Iran
Nationality	French[1][2] and Iranian
Area(s)	Artist & Writer
Notable works	Persepolis Embroideries Chicken with Plums
Awards	full list

Marjane Satrapi (Persian: مرجان ساتراپی) (born 22 November 1969 in Rasht, Iran) is an Iranian-born French^[1][2] contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children's book author. Apart from her native language Persian, she speaks English, Swedish, German, French and Italian.^[3]

Biography

Satrapi grew up in Tehran in a family which was involved with communist and socialist movements in Iran prior to the Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français there and witnessed, as a child, the growing suppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ruhollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran–Iraq War. She experienced an Iraqi air raid and Scud missile attacks on Tehran. According to Persepolis, one Scud hit the house next to hers, killing her friend.

Satrapi's family are of distant Iranian Azeri ancestry and are descendants of Nasser al-Din Shah, Shah of Persia from 1848 until 1896. Satrapi said that "But you have to know the kings of the Qajar dynasty, they had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don't know, 10-15,000 princes [and princesses]. There's nothing extremely special about that."^[4] She added that due to this detail, most Iranian families would be, in the words of Simon Hattenstone of The Guardian, "blue blooded."^[5]

In 1983, at the age of fourteen, Satrapi was sent to Vienna, Austria by her parents in order to flee the Iranian regime. There she attended the Lycée Français de Vienne.^[6] According to her autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis, she stayed in Vienna through her high school years, staying in friends' homes, but spent two months living on the streets. After an almost deadly bout of pneumonia, she returned to Iran. She studied visual communication, eventually obtaining a master's degree from Islamic Azad University in Tehran.^[7]

During this time, Satrapi went to numerous illegal parties hosted by her friends, where she met a man named Reza, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. She married him at the age of 21, but divorced him roughly three years later. Satrapi then moved to Strasbourg, France.

Satrapi is married to Mattias Ripa, a Swedish national.^[8] They have no children, and they live in Paris.^[5]

Career

Graphic novels

Satrapi's career began in earnest when she met David Beauchard, a French comics artist who became her mentor and teacher.^[9] Satrapi became famous worldwide because of her critically acclaimed autobiographical graphic novels, originally published in French in four parts in 2000–2003 and in English translation in two parts in 2003 and 2004, respectively, as Persepolis and Persepolis 2, which describe her childhood in Iran and her adolescence in Europe. Persepolis won the Angoulême Coup de Coeur Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Her later publication, Embroideries (Broderies) was also nominated for the Angoulême Album of the Year award in 2003, an award which was won by her most recent novel, Chicken with Plums (Poulet aux prunes).^[10][11] She has also contributed to the Op-Ed section of The New York Times.^[12]

Films

Marjane Satrapi at the premiere of Persepolis

Persepolis was adapted into an animated film of the same name which debuted at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and shared a Special Jury Prize with Silent Light (Luz silenciosa) by Carlos Reygadas.^[13] Co-written and co-directed by Satrapi and director Vincent Paronnaud, the French-language picture stars the voices of Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, and Simon Abkarian. The English version, starring the voices of Gena Rowlands, Sean Penn, and Iggy Pop, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature in January 2008.^[14]

Persepolis was a very successful film both commercially (with over a million admissions in France alone) as well as critically, winning the Best First Film at the 2008 French César awards (the French equivalent of the Oscars). As such the film reflects many tendencies of first-time filmmaking in France (which makes up around 40% of all French cinema each year), notably in its focus on very intimate rites-of-passage, and quite ambivalently recounted coming-of-age moments.^[15]

Satrapi and Paronnaud continued their successful collaboration with a second film, a live-action adaptation of Chicken with Plums, released in late 2011.^[16][17]

Public appearances

Following the Iranian elections in June 2009, Marjane Satrapi and Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf appeared before Green Party members in the European Parliament to present a document allegedly received from a member of the Iranian electoral commission claiming that the reform candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi had actually won the election, and that the conservative incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad had received only 12% of the vote.^[18]

Works

Cover of Persepolis 1, 2000. L'Association French edition.

French

• Persepolis (2000), Paris: L'Association, ISBN 2-84414-058-0
• Persepolis v2, (2001), L'Association, ISBN 2-84414-079-3
• Persepolis v3, (2002), L'Association, ISBN 2-84414-104-8
• Persepolis v4, (2003), L'Association, ISBN 2-84414-137-4
• Sagesses et malices de la Perse (2001, with Lila Ibrahim-Ouali and Bahman Namwar-Motalg, Albin Michel, ISBN 2-22611-872-1)
• Les monstres n'aiment pas la lune (2001, Nathan Jeunesse, ISBN 2-0928-2094-X)
• Ulysse au pays des fous (2001, with Jean-Pierre Duffour, Nathan Jeunesse, ISBN 2-0921-0847-6)
• Adjar (2002, Nathan Jeunesse, ISBN 2-0921-1033-0)
• Broderies (2003, L'Association, ISBN 2-84414-095-5)
• Poulet aux prunes (2004), Paris: L'Association, ISBN 2-84414-159-5
• Le Soupir (2004, Bréal Jeunesse, ISBN 2-7495-0325-6)

English

• "Persepolis" The Story of a Childhood (2003), New York: Pantheon Books, ISBN 978-0-375-42230-0
• "Persepolis" The Story of a Return v2, (2004), New York: Pantheon Books, ISBN 978-0-375-42288-1
• Embroideries (2005, Pantheon ISBN 978-0-375-42305-5)
• Chicken with Plums (2006), New York: Pantheon Books, ISBN 978-0-375-42415-1
• Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon (2006, Bloomsbury, ISBN 1-5823-4744-1)

Awards

• 2001: Angoulême Coup de Coeur Award for Persepolis^[19]
• 2002: Angoulême Prize for Scenario for Persepolis: Tome 2^[20]
• 2005: Angoulême Best Comic Book Award for Poulet aux prunes^[11]
• 2007: Jury Prize for Persepolis (tied with Silent Light), Cannes Film Festival^[13]
• 2007: Best Animation: Los Angeles Film Critics Association^[14]
• 2008: Cinema for Peace Award for "Most Valuable Movie of the Year"
• 2008: Gat Perich Award
• 2009: Doctor honoris causa both at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Université catholique de Louvain from Belgium^[21]

References

1. ^ ^{a b} J’ai été très bien accueillie et je n’oublierai jamais que j’ai été naturalisée grâce à Jack Lang.Abusdecine perse les secrets de « Persepolis »
2. ^ ^{a b} Vingt-deux films pour une palme d'Or^{[broken citation]}
3. ^ "Author Bio: Marjane Satrapi". Michael Schwartz Library: Cleveland State University. 2011. http://www.ulib.csuohio.edu/cr08/author.html. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
4. ^ Jones, Vanessa E. (October 4, 2004). "A life in graphic detail". Boston Globe. http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2004/10/04/a_life_in_graphic_detail/. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Hattenstone, Simon (29 March 2008). "Confessions of Miss Mischief". The Guardian. http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/biography/story/0,,2268725,00.html. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
6. ^ Bédarida, Catherine. "Marjane Satrapi dessine la vie de l'Iran." Le Monde. 25 June 2003. Retrieved on 21 September 2009.
7. ^ Heather Lee Schroeder (2010). A Reader's Guide to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Enslow Publishers, Inc.. p. 136. ISBN 978-0-7660-3166-1. http://books.google.com/books?id=eNxkRT5sWBsC&pg=PA136. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
8. ^ "IMDb Biography for Marjane Satrapi". Internet Movie Database. 2011. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2277869/bio. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
9. ^ Wolk, Douglas (21 May 2005). "This Sweet Sickness". New York. http://nymag.com/nymetro/arts/books/reviews/10851/. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
10. ^ "Les nominés d’Angoulême 2003" (in French). ActuaBD. December 10, 2003. http://www.actuabd.com/spip.php?article1006. 
11. ^ ^{a b} BDParadisio. "32ème Festival International D'Angouleme" (in French). http://www.bdparadisio.com/angou2005/angou2005.htm. 
12. ^ Satrapi, Marjane. "Op-Ed contributors search". The New York Times. http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/contributors/?match=any&query=Satrapi&submit.x=17&submit.y=8&submit=Search. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
13. ^ ^{a b} "Festival de Cannes: Persepolis". festival-cannes.com. http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/archives/ficheFilm/id/4434938/year/2007.html. Retrieved 2009-12-20. 
14. ^ ^{a b} "Persepolis (2007) NYT Critics' Pick". The New York Times. 2008. http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/351485/Persepolis/details. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
15. ^ Palmer, Tim (2011). Brutal Intimacy: Analyzing Contemporary French Cinema, Wesleyan University Press, Middleton CT. ISBN 0819568279.
16. ^ "Poulet aux prunes" (in French). AlloCiné. Tiger Global. http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=136634.html. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
17. ^ Young, Deborah (2011). "Chicken with Plums: Venice Film Review". Hollywood Reporter. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/chicken-plums-venice-film-review-231022. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
18. ^ Kellogg, Carolyn (16 June 2009). "Iranian author Marjane Satrapi speaks out about election". The Los Angeles Times (Tribune Company). http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/06/iranian-author-marjane-satrapi-speaks-out-about-election.html. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 
19. ^ Comic Book Awards Almanac. "Awards of the 2001 Angoulême International Comics Festival". http://users.rcn.com/aardy/comics/awards/prixa01.shtml. 
20. ^ "Angoulême 2002: les lauréats" (in French). ActuaBD. 25 January 2002. http://www.actuabd.com/spip.php?article143. 
21. ^ "KUL en UCL reiken samen eredoctoraten uit [KUL and UCL award honorary doctorates together]" (in Dutch). De Morgan. 2008. http://www.demorgen.be/dm/nl/1344/Onderwijs/article/detail/469228/2008/10/29/KUL-en-UCL-reiken-samen-eredoctoraten-uit.dhtml. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 

Further reading

• Chute, Hilary L. (2010). Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-15062-0. http://www.worldcat.org/title/graphic-women-life-narrative-and-contemporary-comics/oclc/496610090/viewport. Retrieved 6 September 2011. 

External links

	Biography portal
	Iran portal
	France portal
	Literature portal

• Persepolis film (2008) official website, Sony Picture Classics
• Marjane Satrapi, author at Random House
• Marjane Satrapi biography on Lambiek Comiclopedia
• Persepolis: A State of Mind, reflections by Marjane Satrapi (2007)
• "Princess of Darkness", interview by Robert Chalmers, The Independent (1 October 2006)
• Marjane Satrapi interview at Bookslut (2004)
• Marjane Satrapi interview at Powells.com (2006)
• Marjane Satrapi interview at Reviewgraveyard.com
• Marjane Satrapi interview at Newsarama^{[dead link]}
• Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud interview at IFC News^{[dead link]}
• "Bringing Iran To The West: Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis" at The Culturatti

Persondata
Name	Satrapi, Marjane
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	22 November 1969
Place of birth	Rasht, Iran
Date of death
Place of death