The Complete Persepolis

INTRODUCTION
To the 20th Anniversary Edition
 
When Persepolis was first published in France in 2000, I was sure the world was headed in the right direction. There were no major wars, and it seemed that humanity had somehow learned from its mistakes, that in the twenty-first century we d finally come to realize that the earth belonged to everyone equally and that we were one race the human race.
 
Believing this, I was certain the need for the book would fade over time. That soon enough what I had written about living through a revolution and a war and growing up under the Islamic Republic of Iran s dictatorship would feel like ancient history. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
 
Persepolis was released in the United States in 2003, in the aftermath of 9/11, and we Iranians had come to be considered part of the Axis of Evil. I was invited to appear across the country, even at West Point, where I spoke about the importance of differentiating between the Iranian people and the actions of the Islamic Republic, and I became a vocal critic of the war in Iraq, pointing out the hypocrisy of trying to instill democracy with bombs.
 
In the years since, the book has been both beloved and banned. Banned for its sexual scenes (I still don t know where those scenes are); for its torture scenes (because it s acceptable for assault rifles to be legal in the United States, even if that frequently results in the murder of innocent people, but it s not okay for a reader to see a single drawing documenting the torture of political prisoners); and, more recently, because of Islamophobia.
 
I take the book s banning as a huge compliment. A banned book is always a good book. After all, what better company to be in than Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain?
 
Now, as I write this, a new revolution is happening in Iran, started by young women in response to the killing of Mahsa Amini. It s the first feminist revolution in which women and men are

Marjane Satrapi

Praise for Persepolis: Volume 1

A New York Times Notable Book  A Time Magazine Best Comix of the Year    A San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times Best Seller

"A memoir of growing up as a girl in revolutionary Iran, Persepolis provides a unique glimpse into a nearly unknown and unreachable way of life.... That Satrapi chose to tell her remarkable story as a gorgeous comic book makes it totally unique and indispensable." Time

Delectable... Dances with drama and insouciant wit. The New York Times Book Review

A stunning graphic memoir hailed as a wholly original achievement in the form. There s still a startling freshness to the book. It won t age. In inky shadows and simple, expressive lines reminiscent of Ludwig Bemelmans s Madeline Satrapi evokes herself and her schoolmates coming of age in a world of protests and disappearances ... A stark, shocking impact. Parul Sehgal, The 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years The New York Times

A dazzlingly singular achievement.... Striking a perfect balance between the fantasies and neighborhood conspiracies of childhood and the mounting lunacy of Khomeini's reign, she's like the Persian love child of Spiegelman and Lynda Barry. Salon

A brilliant and unusual graphic memoir.... [Told] in a guileless voice ... accompanied by a series of black-and-white drawings that dramatically illustrate how a repressive regime deforms ordinary lives. Vogue

"Odds are, you ll be too busy being entertained to realize how much you ve learned until you turn the last page. Elle.com

[A] self-portrait of the artist as a young girl, rendered in graceful black-and-white comics that apply a childlike sensibility to the bleak lowlights of recent Iranian history. . . . [Her] style is powerful; it persuasively communicates confusion and horror through the eyes of a precocious preteen. Village Voice

Praise for