Persepolis: In and Out of Revolutionary Iran
When a book about a country with a turbulent past and present gets big praise from Western critics, I often suspect it’s because it aligns with Western values and a sense of superiority. That’s how Persepolis felt to me. Using simple black-and-white art, Marjane Satrapi tells the story of her childhood during the revolution and the war. Very early on, she brings up the “Arab invasion” and celebrates pre-Islamic Persia. I’m glad to see Persia appreciated—Western writing often overlooks it—but the book’s tone toward Arabs and Islam feels too harsh, especially given how much Iranian culture flourished during the Islamic period. Poetry, philosophy, and architecture flourished for centuries—think of Hafez, the mosques and gardens of Isfahan, and advances in art, science, and learning. Portraying that era only as loss or foreign rule misses the deep exchange that helped shape Iran as it is today. We can honor pre-Islamic Persia without putting down the Islamic centuries or Arab influence; these layers sit together, not in competition.
Another problem is how the book treats religion. Believers are mostly cast as fundamentalists, with little sense that Islam—the faith itself—differs from what the Iranian state enforces. That lack of nuance erases the range of religious experience in Iran and, in a Western context, risks feeding Islamophobic narratives instead of challenging them.
What finally lost me was the double standard: the narrative is wary of Arab/Islamic influence while fully embracing a French education and a very Western way of life. Little in the family’s day-to-day feels grounded in Persian social life, pre-Islamic or otherwise. Choosing a Western lifestyle isn’t any more admirable than choosing Arab ways.
I appreciate Satrapi’s honesty as a narrator, and the book can be sharp and funny. Still, some of her choices and quick judgments annoyed me. Her immigrant life in Vienna was the most compelling part for me; I could really picture the day-to-day interactions. It’s also the only section where she openly misses parts of her Persian identity, and I wish that thread was more present in the book.
I’m not sure I would actually recommend this book to anyone. There must be better books to learn about Iran; this just isn’t one of them.