French-Iranian graphic novelist and illustrator Marjane Satrapi poses in front of the central part of an Olympic triptych tapestry created for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, designed from a drawing by Satrapi. [Getty]
Franco-Iranian author and film director Marjane Satrapi, best known for the graphic novel and film “Persepolis”, has died aged 56.
“Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,” they said in a statement sent to AFP.
Satrapi’s husband, a Swedish producer, actor and screenwriter, died on 8 April last year.
A series of recent posts on Satrapi’s Instagram page spelt out the message “For I Lost the love of my life”.
Satrapi, an outspoken critic of Iran’s theocratic government, arrived in France in 1994 and gained French nationality in 2006.
“Persepolis” recounts the story of Satrapi’s early life in Tehran, where she struggles under the restrictions imposed by Iran’s Islamic leadership after the 1979 revolution, before her parents send her to Europe, and she begins a life in exile.
Marjane Satrapi returned to graphic novels in 2023 by working together with over 20 activists, artists, journalists, and academics on a collection of stories originally published in French with the title Femme, vie, liberté (L’Iconoclaste, September 2023) in response to the uprising in Iran related to women’s rights.
Last year, she refused the French Legion d’Honneur award over the country’s “hypocrisy” in its dealings with Iran, citing French visa policies that prevented dissidents from leaving Iran for the European country.
