The versatility of Satrapi’s novels

The French-Iranian artist influenced a generation of comics creators and graphic novelists around the world, and in India

- Aditya Mani Jha

The French-Iranian writer, artist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, who died on 4 June at the age of 56, was known for pioneering graphic novels like Persepolis (2003) and Embroideries (2005).

In the 2000s, Satrapi was among the iconic comics artists (alongside Joe Sacco and Art Spiegelman), who were responsible for popularising the medium globally and raising its profile among literary critics and lay readers alike. Persepolis in particular became a breakthrough hit, a staple on university curricula worldwide.

It tells the story of Satrapi’s own childhood in Iran and youth in France, especially focusing on the changes sweeping through Iran in the late 1970s with the onset of the Islamic Revolution. The reader sees the action unfold through the eyes of little Marjane or “Marji”—people changing their entire belief systems overnight, people being “disappeared” or executed for dissent, people selling out their neighbours to the police.

In a 2003 essay titled ‘Why I Wrote Persepolis’, Satrapi famously said, “Graphic novels are not traditional literature, but that does not mean they are second-rate.” She embraced this belief all her life, and her influence on comics creators around the world, including and especially in India, remains palpable.

“Persepolis for me was definitely that first book that showed me what it means for one artist to bring together word and image, what it means to narrate history that’s also a deeply personal coming-of-age story,” says writer and comics artist Ita Mehrotra, whose politically charged graphic narratives include Shaheen Bagh: A Graphic Recollection (2021) and Uprooted: A Graphic Account of the Struggle for Forest Rights (2025).