Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood is a comic by Marjane Satrapi, portraying her childhood in Iran. The book is in autobiographic form and revolves around the life of writer in Iran and gives amazing and unseen pictures of Iran during the time of Islamic revolution. Title of the book Persepolis is inspired by the name of ancient empire of Persia, the book is a bestseller and several pictures have been made on the stories of the book.
The writer of the book was born in Iran and in her childhood saw dethroning of emperors, Iran Iraq war and revolutionists preparation for the rebellion. Since Marjane herself belonged to one of very influential families of Iran, her grandfather was a very high ranked official in the reign of Shah. She watched the comings and goings very familiarly and compiled all the funny, unforgettable and wise things in her book Persepolis: the story of a childhood.
It is not possible for anybody to fathom without reading the book that how wise and observant the writer was as a little girl. She has taken cognizance of small to huge things and minor to major incidents and presented them in a very remarkable way. Marjane has compared revolutions with the bicycles and said that if they are in current use they will be oxidized. This talented girl was fond of reading and in this course she had learnt that king is a representative of god and she was very excited when she came to know from his father that how king is chosen and the kingship is transferred to his son. Marjane had a different attitude and when children of her age were
Once she was told that her grandfather was tortured by the king because of his Marxist thoughts, she also tried to feel the pain by keeping herself in that particular situation. Marjane’s grandmother told her about the atrocities that were made on her family by shah of Iran, their property was seized and different other sanctions were also imposed on the family. After learning this brain of a child was constrained to make a decision that though shah was very atrocious in his times; his son is no way less than his ancestors. By hearing and readings about the atrocities of Shah a political sense developed inside her and on fall of Shah she tore his picture from her book and was taught by her mother to be more merciful. The writer started considering the rebels and prisoners as heroes as other Iranians did.
The book is an amazing compilation of different kind of childhood memories, incidents of private and public affairs and several other things of that time. The book lets a reader know about the effects of war and revolutions on a mind and life of a child. The book depicts the culture, people, and society of Iran and helps a reader to know it in a better way. The writer has very authentically and naturally mentioned about the social, cultural, economic and political condition of the country. Since the writer was in her early age she had a different view of watching the society and a different approach of understanding the world, while writing this book, it gives a unique feature to this book. Several books are available on Iran war and Islamic revolution but there is a huge difference in the vision of this book and rest books.
Work Cited
Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. Paris: Pantheon Books, 2000.
