Persepolis I & II

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 and the devastating effects of war with Iraq.|Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht Iran. She now lives in Paris where she is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers throughout the world including the New Yorker and the New York Times. She is the author of several children's books as well as the critically acclaimed and internationally bestselling memoir Persepolis which has been translated into twelve languages and was awarded the first Fernando Bueso Blanco Peace Prize in Spain.|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 and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists and 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 and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life. Amidst the tragedy Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary beset by the unthinkable and yet buffered by an extraordinary and 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 and 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 and sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna followed by a supremely educational and heartwrenching four years back home in Iran. Just as funny and 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 and searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism and its cost to the human spirit. In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life and growing into adulthood - here compounded by being an outsider both abroad and at home and 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 and incredibly illuminating.|As Iran enters another important period of change...I think this is particularly good time to pick up Persepolis. Satrapi's deceptively simple almost whimsical drawings belie the seriousness and rich complexity of her story - but its also very funny too|A revelation...you will remember it for a very long time|Persepolis is a stylish clever and moving weapon of mass destruction|The magic of Marjane Satrapi's work is that it can condense a whole country's tragedy into one poignant funny scene after another|I cannot praise enough Marjane Satrapi's moving account of growing up as a spirited young girl in revolutionary and war-time Iran. Persepolis is disarming and often humorous but ultimately it is shattering