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Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian artist, filmmaker and author of the famous book known as Persepolis who helped to reshape the Iranian nationalism, has died at the age of 56.
In a statement given to the French news agency AFP, relatives said she “died of grief” after the death of her husband, Swedish producer Mattias Ripa.
Ripa died on April 8 last year. Later that month, several messages posted on Satrapi’s Instagram account revealed the words: “Because I lost the love of my life.”
Tributes have been paid to Satrapi from French politics and culture following news of his death. President Emmanuel Macron said Satrapi was “a great artist who turned his Iranian childhood into an international story,” adding: “With his childlike imagination, his humor, his love, his inner demons, the author created a moving world that readers recognized.”
Writing on X, Yaël Braun-Pivet, president of the French Parliament, said: “Marjane Satrapi turned her work into freedom.
Born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran, near the Caspian Sea, Satrapi was raised in Tehran by his father, an engineer, and his mother, a garment maker. As a teenager, he left Iran after his parents sent him to Europe to continue his education, hoping it would protect him from the restrictions imposed by the Islamic Republic. He later settled in France, arriving in 1994 and later became a French citizen in 2006.
Throughout his life, Satrapi was a staunch opponent of the establishment of Iran’s leaders.
In 2000 he published Persepolis, a comic book memoir that became an international hit. It told the story of a rebellious and outspoken girl who led the revolution in Iran after the overthrow of the shah in 1979 and the establishment of the Islamic Republic. The story follows the protagonist’s attempts to understand violence and control the country’s emotions before he is sent alone to Europe at the age of 14.
Satrapi told the Guardian in 2024 that Persepolis was about making western readers think about the humanity of the Iranian people, that, “Oh, they are actually people like us”.
The memoir sold millions of copies, established Satrapi as one of the most widely read Iranian writers in the world, and its success challenged many Western assumptions about Iranian culture and society.
Satrapi explained how he initially did not expect Persepolis to be published. At that time, he was still a talented student in Strasbourg and had little talent in sports. He said: “With Persepolis, I never thought I would find a publisher.” he told El País in 2020. “I thought I would make 50 copies for my friends to read.”
Satrapi later directed the animated film Persepolis, which became an international hit and earned her a place in Oscar history as the first woman to be nominated for an Academy Award for best animation.
He said that the purpose of his comic books was to convince the Iranian youth that they are being heard and supported by the outside world. If they kill and the rest of the world doesn’t care, so what?
By his choice between, in 2012 he replied: “Drawing – it is the first language of people, before we write, before we speak, before we speak.”
Satrapi has also directed five films, including Radioactive (2019), which stars Rosamund Pike as pioneering scientist Marie Curie.
After leaving theater for many years, in 2024, he returned to the central, unifying role of Woman, Life, Freedom, an art project that brings together 17 Iranian and international artists together with students and researchers. The book also shed light on the protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who was arrested in 2022 for refusing to obey Iran’s constitutional law.
Discussing the book, Satrapi said: “The only thing I can do is social work… This book is a message to the people of Iran to say, listen, you are not alone.”
French journalist Tristane Banon paid tribute to Satrapi on X, writing: “Marjane …
Valérie Pécresse, president of the Regional Council of Île-de-France, said: “I was deeply saddened to hear of the death of my friend Marjane Satrapi.” She was a professional photographer, photographer, photographer, filmmaker, but most of all she was a loving and devoted woman.
“From Persepolis to his biography of Marie Curie, Radioactive, he has established himself as an important voice in defense of democracy and women’s rights in Iran and around the world. The death of his friend has affected him deeply. I am thinking of his loved ones and his family.”
