Marjane Satrapi Biography and latest books by Marjane Satrapi

Marjane Satrapi (born 22 November 1969 in Rasht, Iran) is an Iranian-born French contemporary graphic novelist, illustrator, animated film director, and children\'s book author. She is known for her work Persepolis which was again adapted into a film by the same name.
 

Satrapi was raised in Tehran in a family that believed in a communist and socialist ideology prior to the Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français and witnessed the growing suppression of civil liberties. She very closely saw the fall of the Shah, the early rule of Ruhollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran–Iraq War.
Satrapi\'s family are descendants of Nasser al-Din Shah, Shah of Persia from 1848 until 1896. Satrapi had once said in an interview: "But you have to know the kings of the Qajar dynasty, they had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don\'t know, 10-15,000 princes [and princesses]. There\'s nothing extremely special about that."

At the age of fourteen Satrapi was sent to Austria by her parents in order to flee the Iranian regime. According to her autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis, she stayed in Vienna through her high school years, putting up in friends\' homes, but there was a time when spent two months living on the streets. After an acute pneumonia attack, she returned to Iran and pursued visual communication, and earned master\'s degree from Islamic Azad University in Tehran.

During this time, Satrapi attended numerous illegal parties hosted by her friends, where she met a man named Reza, a veteran of the Iran-Iraq War. She married him at the age of 21, but divorced him after three years. Satrapi then moved to Strasbourg, France. Satrapi is now married to Mattias Ripa, a Swedish national. They have no children, and they live in Paris.

Her novels
Satrapi met David Beauchard, a French comics artist who became her mentor and teacher. Satrapi became famous worldwide because of her critically acclaimed autobiographical graphic novels, originally published in French in four parts in 2000–2003 and in English translation in two parts in 2003 and 2004, respectively, as Persepolis and Persepolis 2, which describe her childhood in Iran and her adolescence in Europe. Persepolis won the Angoulême Coup de Coeur Award at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Her later publication, Embroideries was also nominated for the Angoulême Album of the Year award in 2003, an award which was won by her most recent novel, Chicken with Plums (Poulet aux prunes).

Persepolis was adapted into an animated film of the same name which debuted at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and shared a Special Jury Prize with Silent Light by Carlos Reygadas.