Marjane Satrapi, best known for her memoir and film Persepolis, has died, aged 56. The death of this much loved Iranian–French artist, graphic novelist, film-maker and activist has been met with widespread celebration of her life – and its dedication to resistance, freedom and humanity. French president Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to “a great artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable”.
Satrapi was born in Rasht (like my own mother) in 1969, then raised in Tehran. She came of age during the Iranian Revolution and the turbulent years that followed. As political repression intensified, members of her family and wider social circle were arrested, persecuted – and in some cases, executed, like her uncle Anoosh, a former political prisoner and exile, executed by the Islamic Republic.
