Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

Based on her own personal experience of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Marjane Satrapi introduces us to the effects of cultural change through the eyes of a child. The graphic novel entitled, Persepolis, is a political, historical, and extremely personal account of a girl’s growth into maturity. There are a great range of emotions disseminated in this novel. The reader is sidelined by murky melancholic feelings of familiarity and disdain. Such is a tale of life. Persepolis is an account of demands made without understanding of repercussions. A child can only see so far into the future, and even then, the tendency is for years to be skipped and hardships, overlooked.

As our society is continuingly putting up boundaries and constructing ideas of “ingroups and outgroups”, it is important to realize and understand the effects on the present. We may be fighting for the future, but are we looking ahead before looking to those beside us. Persepolis is a novel of the importance of being aware of ourselves and understanding the consequences of change.