Persepolis (Satrapi)

Author Bio
• Birth—November 22, 1969
• Where—Rasht, Iran
• Rasied—Tehran, Iran
• Education—M.A., Tehran Islamic Azad University
• Awards—Angloueme Coup de Couer for Persepolis 1 & 2;
   Cinema for Peace, Most Valuable Movie of the Year;
   Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize
• Currently—lives in Paris, France

Satrapi grew up in Tehran in a family which was involved with the communist and socialist movements in Iran, prior to the Iranian Revolution. She attended the Lycée Français there and witnessed, as a child, the growing suppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ruhollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran-Iraq war.

Satrapi is a great-granddaughter of Nasser al-Din Shah, Shah of Persia from 1848 until 1896. However, Satrapi points out that "the kings of the Qajar Turkish dynasty...had hundreds of wives. They made thousands of kids. If you multiply these kids by generation you have, I don't know, ten to fifteen thousand princes and princesses. There's nothing extremely special about that."

In 1983, at the age of 14, Satrapi was sent to Vienna, Austria, by her parents in order to flee the Iranian regime. According to her autobiographical graphic novel, Persepolis, she lived there during her high school years, returning to Iran for college. At college, she met a man named Reza, whom she married at age 21 and divorced roughly three years later.

She then studied Visual Communication, eventually obtaining a Master's Degree in Visual Communication from the School of Fine Arts in Tehran Islamic Azad University. Satrapi then moved to Strasbourg, France. She currently lives in Paris, where she works as an illustrator and an author of children's books. (From Wikipedia.)