Persepolis I & II

Product Description

Wise, often funny, sometimes heartbreaking, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran from the ages of six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution & the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent & outspoken child of radical Marxists, & the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran & of the bewildering contradictions between home life & public life. Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy & humour, & her story of a childhood at once outrageous & ordinary, beset by the unthinkable & yet buffered by an extraordinary & loving family, is immensely moving. It is also very beautiful; Satrapi's drawings have the power of the very best woodcuts.

Persepolis ends on a cliffhanger in 1984, just as fourteen-year-old Marjane is leaving behind her home in Tehran, escaping fundamentalism & the war with Iraq to begin a new life in the West. In Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return we follow our young, intrepid heroine through the next eight years of her life: an eye-opening & sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna, followed by a supremely educational & heartwrenching four years back home in Iran. Just as funny & heartbreaking as its predecessor
- with perhaps an even greater sense of the ridiculous inspired by life in a fundamentalist state
- Persepolis 2 is also as clear-eyed & searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism & its cost to the human spirit. In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life & growing into adulthood
- here compounded by being an outsider both abroad & at home, & by living in a state where you have no right to show your hair, wear make-up, run in public, date, or question authority
- it's raw, honest, & incredibly illuminating.