Marjane Satrapi captured profound human emotions, and paved the way for a generation
Article excerpt
Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian graphic novelist whose groundbreaking 2000 memoir Persepolis transformed comics into a vehicle for serious storytelling, has died. Her unflinching portrait of growing up during the Iranian Revolution, rendered in stark black-and-white panels, became a global phenomenon, earning an Academy Award nomination for its 2007 film adaptation and opening doors for graphic novels to be taken seriously as literature. Fellow cartoonist Mana Neyestani credits Satrapi with creating the cultural space that made his own career possible, one of many artists who followed in her wake. Beyond Persepolis, Satrapi's visual gift for capturing intimate human emotion, isolation, rebellion, love, loss, across a fraught political landscape influenced a generation of creators who saw in her work proof that comics could be art.
The graphic novelist had a remarkable gift for visual storytelling, in the phenomenon that was Persepolis and beyond. Many of us owe our careers to the space she created, says Iranian cartoonist Mana Neyestani
• News: Marjane Satrapi, creator of Persepolis and acclaimed French-Iranian artist, dies aged 56
On the morning of 4 June, when I heard the news of Marjane Satrapi’s death, I was stunned. I simply could not believe it. Although I had met her only a handful of times in person, despite having lived in Paris for 16 years and having contributed to her book Woman, Life, Freedom, I felt a deep connection to her work and legacy.
Our collaboration on that book took place mostly through email correspondence, but I always held her in the highest regard. I admired her intelligence, her extraordinary sense of humour and, above all, her remarkable gift for visual storytelling.
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