Animation· 2007· Drama

Persepolis

by Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Paronnaud

Persepolis: it draws on 3 recorded sources.

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What influenced Persepolis

The works this one is recorded as drawing on.

Maus

Book · 1980

InfluenceHIGH

Satrapi has said reading Maus is what showed her that comics could carry this, and that she decided to tell her own story after it. The inheritance is specific: black and white with no tonal shading, a child's eye on a catastrophe, and a frame in which the author as an adult is questioning the past rather than reporting it. Spiegelman drew the Shoah through a son interviewing his father; Satrapi drew the Iranian revolution through a girl and her grandmother.

Persepolis

Comic · 2000

AdaptationHIGH

Marjane Satrapi co-directed the film of her own graphic memoir with Vincent Paronnaud, keeping the book's stark black and white drawing and its story of a girlhood in revolutionary Iran and exile in Europe.

Real-world influences

Events, places, movements and ideas outside fiction that this work is recorded as drawing on.

Personal Experiences

Real world

Real-world influenceHIGH
  • Childhood
  • Exile

Marjane Satrapi adapted her own memoir of growing up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution and the war with Iraq, and of her exile to Vienna and her final departure from Iran.

About the work

Persepolis

The story follows a young girl as she comes of age against the backdrop of the Iranian Revolution. The title references the historical city of Persepolis.