Up close and personal with Marjane Satrapi

SPOT
LIGHT!

IDENTITY

Your identity as an Iranian woman has certainly influenced the writing of your novel. Could you tell us about
the purposeful portrayal of your thoughts and feelings as compared to others in your memoir?
Could you talk a little bit about how you used your relationship with God to drive your intended message in
the graphic novel?

RESPONSE:
 CULTURE

You represent violence as a means to enforce Islamic fundamentalism by the regime and its
impact on the lives of the Iranian people. What changed as a result of this and what did not?

CREATIVITY

In what ways do you consider your ideas to be authentic and original enough in capturing the moments
of those times and how effectively is it able to captivate the imagination of the reader to your thoughts,
viewpoints and feelings?
 COMMUNICATION

If you could shed a bit of light on, how you considered and chose the style of a graphic novel as an
effective medium to draw out powerful themes of freedom, war, violence, faith, religion and rebellion?

TRANSFORMATION

Have you also been inspired by other texts that have similarly conveyed such issues? Have there been
any intertextual connections that could have sparked off these ideas to manifest itself into the form of a
graphic novel? Why do you think it is justifiable to affect people’s thoughts about religion and
fundamentalism?
 PERSPECTIVE

Your novel presents both themes of domination and rebellion. Looking through the eyes of the
middle class in Iran, how do you think people viewed the Islamic revolution and its effect on people’s
faith and mindsets? Do you feel that the world will change its perceptions about the propagators of
Islam? If so in what ways?

REPRESENTATION

The manner in which you represent religious bigotry and its harsh governance in Persepolis, do you feel
that the situation may perhaps change for the better if these stories are told to the world? Is there a
possibility that the Iranian people may find peace in their religious ideologies after all?