4 June 26
Marjane Satrapi
In 1977 I travelled to Iran to visit a boyfriend whose father was an Australian geology professor at the University of Shiraz. This was before the Islamic Revolution, and Clint Eastwood was playing at the movie theater, bootleg tapes of rock music were for sale in the streets, and girls wore chadors over jeans and T-shirts.
The VW bus owned by Cameron’s family drove us around southern Iran, including a trip to Persepolis, the ancient capital of the Achaemenid empire. Processions of victorious warriors and their captives were carved in bas-relief on the walls of great buildings. The city was conquered and burned by Alexander the Great, so any remains are solid stone. I remember walking around the ruins above a copse where Cameron’s parents napped in the shade, among huge numbers of bee-eaters flying around. In the shade of massive blocks of stones, wild gerbils hopped about.
Since that time I’ve been particularly interested in Iran, in this great ancient civilization that has been through so much and which continues to do so. Today I learned that Marjane Satrapi, the author of a graphic memoir about her life in Tehran and France, had died at age 56. Her memoir, which was also turned into a film, was called Persepolis. It was only the second serious comic I ever read, after Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Satrapi lived in France for years and wrote her memoir in French. The style is bold black and white. Her family has said she died of a broken heart after the death of her husband. Whatever the official cause of death, I hope she is at peace now.
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