Graphic
novel explains experiences of Iranians during revolution and war
Washington -- Marjane Satrapi’s
Persepolis, a four-volume series that first was published in 2000, has
become one of the most influential graphic novels in the past 10 years and is a
cornerstone of curricula being taught at U.S. universities, including the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point, the premier institution for training U.S. Army
officers.
The series, which tells the story of
Satrapi's life in revolutionary and wartime Iran, has educated and inspired a
wide range of readers, including pro-democracy activists from China to
Chile.
“Suddenly it became the story of all
dictatorships and it put me in a situation that suddenly, despite myself, I
became the voice of a generation or the population,” Satrapi said in Washington
October 31.
She said she wrote the book to help
outsiders understand the Iranian people and their experience during the
revolution and war with Iraq, adding that with the current tensions between Iran
and the outside world, “there is a lot of need of this book today.”
Marjane-Satrapi
“This whole work … [was] to try to
show the human part of us, to say hey, these people that are so much misjudged,
they are human beings exactly like you with family stories, with hopes, and you
can identify with them and it might be you today.”
She said a whole generation of
Iranians went through this, and now after a period of reflection “it is the
right moment” to talk about these events.
Satrapi is among a growing number of
women of Persian heritage living in the United States and elsewhere who are
seizing upon the opportunity to tell their own stories, taking advantage of new
freedoms and an increased feeling of comfort in their new
societies.
For more coverage, see Women in the Global Community and
The Arts.
(Distributed by the Bureau of
International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
