Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian artist and graphic novelist whose acclaimed memoir Persepolis reshaped international understanding of Iran, has died at age 56. Her family stated that she "died of sadness" following the death of her husband, Swedish producer Mattias Ripa, who passed away on April 8, 2023. Later that month, messages posted on Satrapi's Instagram account included the phrase: "For I lost the love of my life."
Born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran, Satrapi grew up in Tehran with her father, an engineer, and her mother, a dress designer. As a teenager, her parents sent her to Europe to continue her education and escape the restrictions of the Islamic Republic. She eventually settled in France in 1994 and became a French citizen in 2006.
Satrapi published Persepolis in 2000, a four-volume graphic memoir that became an international publishing success. The work chronicled her childhood during Iran's 1979 revolution and the subsequent Iran-Iraq War, following a rebellious young girl as she navigated the country's violence and ideological control before being sent alone to Europe at age 14. The memoir sold millions of copies and established Satrapi as one of the most widely read Iranian authors globally. She initially had modest expectations for the project, telling El País in 2020: "With Persepolis, I didn't even think I'd find a publisher. I thought I'd make 50 photocopies for my friends to read."
Satrapi co-directed the animated film adaptation of Persepolis, which became an international success. She made history as the first woman nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. She later directed five feature films, including Radioactive in 2019, starring Rosamund Pike as physicist Marie Curie.
Regarding her choice of medium, Satrapi said: "Drawing it's the first language of human beings, before writing, before even talking, before words." She described the purpose of her work as reassuring young Iranians they were heard and supported globally, stating: "If they kill you and the whole world doesn't care, how is that? This is the whole thing I'm asking: just recognise this."
In 2024, Satrapi returned to comics by coordinating Woman, Life, Freedom, a collaborative graphic work featuring 17 Iranian and international comic artists alongside academics. The book examined protests following the 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman detained for allegedly failing to comply with mandatory headscarf rules. Discussing the project, Satrapi said: "The only thing I can do is cultural work. This book is a message to the Iranian people to say, listen, you are not alone."
Her death prompted tributes from French political leaders and international figures. President Emmanuel Macron called her "a great artist who turned her Iranian childhood into a universal tale." Margaret Atwood noted that Satrapi "lived" experiences of repression that Atwood had only written about, describing her work as increasingly pertinent given Iran's current circumstances.