My first foray into the world of graphic novels was a success! Although this was a graphic memoir... Same thing! It took me a while to get used to reading the text and enjoying the art, but I soon got into the flow of it and was immersed in the life of Marjane Satrapi. This edition spans her childhood growing up in Iran before her parents sent her to Vienna for high school to escape the political upheaval in her country, and then her return to Iran as a young woman.

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Originally published in French, Persepolis has since been translated into many other languages. I find this fascinating, as it must be very different to translate a book made up entirely of headings and speech! The style is like nothing I've read before, quite informal and intensely personal, even while recounting the history of Iran, namely the Islamic Revolution. It was a strange experience, but definitely a good one!

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I'm really not qualified to comment on the art, but I liked it! It was fairly simple, yet managed to convey a lot of emotion at the same time. There was one part where, after Marjane returns from Vienna and sees how much her family and friends have suffered, she doesn't want to talk about her own (very real) issues because they seem pale in comparison. There's a panel where a huge black cloud is pressing down on her, the weight of her unshared worries and anxieties pressing down on her, and it actually brought a lump to my throat. I think we're all struggling with this to some extent at the minute - trying to repress our own worries because the world is on fire and we don't want to seem petty or selfish. Satrapi manages to convey that suffocating feeling of repressing your thoughts with a simplicity that is striking.

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Anyway, enough of me projecting onto this excellent memoir. Satrapi does a fantastic job of laying out such a complex life, not to mention the history of a country, in a straightforward yet emotionally resonant manner.
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She calls out the hypocrisy of the regime which twisted Islam to benefit its own ends, while criticising the west for manipulating the situation in Iran too. It's such a refreshingly frank account of her own life too. She makes no attempt to sugarcoat or hide the harsher moments of her life.

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If I had one grumble, it would be that I wish the publisher had made the book physically bigger! My old lady eyes struggled a bit with the size of the font. But please, pull out your reading glasses and lamp and pick up this graphic memoir!