You could call her the first graphic novelist from Iran. And like her subject content about life in that country in the late 1970's, you could call her revolutionary.

For the last four years, Marjane Satrapi has not been just telling her life story; she's been capturing and illustrating it in black and white boxes. Satrapi's graphic novel, "Persepolis," is a touching account of her life as a young girl during the Iranian Revolution.   

 Written directly in French and now translated in several languages, this unique memoir details Satrapi's life through her teenage years. Upon her parent's request, she left Iran in the mid-1980s to receive education in Europe where she would later study illustration.

Recently I had the opportunity to interview Satrapi in her studio in Paris and talk about what it means to be politically coherent and a revolutionary artist in the field of graphic novels. The following is an abridged version of our phone conversation:

Q. First off, what inspired you to draw your story instead of just to write it?

 A. Well you know for me that I can make a separation between them, As soon as I write something, I want to draw something about it. I think it is absolutely something associated in my brain, I guess . . . I read "Maus" by Spiegelman and with this kind of book I said to myself, Jesus, yeah, this is possible. That's the best way to do it. So it became very obvious for me, I love images so I couldn't do anything but drawing.

Q. How do you define your work, "Persepolis"—more political, more personal, or both?

A. That's a very good question. There were so many misjudgments about my country, like many other countries in the world. You always have this idea and these sides. Plus the human being wants to put a name and a face and even an address to what is bad, to what is evil. The evil has always existed, so the evil at one time was the Soviet Union . . . then after that it became Iran, then Saddam, then Bin Laden. After Bin Laden, then it became Saddam again. Who is the evil next? I'm sure we will find it pretty soon. But in the beginning of the eighties after the Iranian Revolution, the evil was Iran. Everywhere I went, I had to justify why I was Iranian, what it was to be Iranian. So I always said to myself, I will tell [those who ask] exactly about my country. So this story I said it over and over hundreds and thousands of times, and you know, I read this sentence of an Italian writer one day who wrote that through writing was the only way to talk without being interrupted. And I felt, yeah, brilliant idea. I don't say that I am a historian, or a politician and I don't say that this is how it was and I don't really represent anything. I say, listen, you have an idea about my country and this is the way I lived it. And this story is my story; it's just the way it was and it's up to you to judge it.

Q. You have also written children's books?

A. Yes.

Q. Do they also deal with Iranian themes?

A. Not really. And yes, of course.  I grew up in a country with a certain culture.  When I want to write books for children, I always remember the child I was and what I wanted to hear when I was a child. That is always the question I ask myself—what did I like to hear? . .  . All of my work is like that. All the time when you are an immigrant, you leave your country once in your life and you never have any more country. It is finished once and forever. And even your own country is never ever your own country because you have gone and people that have stayed, they consider you always like someone who has gone. My feelings, my affections, they are extremely Iranian and I can never get rid of them. Even "Persepolis," of course, is a very Iranian story, but it has been said in a very Western way.

Q. Do you consider yourself the first Iranian graphic novelist?

A. Erm, I guess I was, Four years ago, I made the first Iranian graphic novel. I guess that if someone else did it before me, I would have known it until now. Until nobody tells me that they have done something before me, I would consider myself the first Iranian graphic novelist.

Q. Did "Persepolis" get translated into Farsi?

A. Oh, not yet. It has been translated into all the languages you can imagine. Of course, in English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch, German . . .even in Hebrew. I have an editor in Israel. In today's situation of Iran, I don't think there will be an editor, because we have this Ministry of Orientation that says what you have the right to do and what you shouldn't do . . . I don't think this Ministry will allow "Persepolis" to come out because I really put my finger on all the things that were not doing too well in the country.

Q. Since you lived during the revolution, how do you define one? What's your definition of a revolution?

A. For me, a revolution is a mass psychosis. That's how I will define revolution, and I am not really for revolution. In the name of the revolution, you kill so easily. Everybody has a problem with everybody.  The bad thing about revolutions is that they are always made up of ideologies, and those who take it over are the cynical ones. Always. All the revolutions around the world are the same—The idealist makes the revolution and the cynical one takes the power. If you want the power, you should be cynical, right? But who wants the power really? . . . Who is the one who wants to be responsible for, I don't know, 100 million people? . . . Do you want the responsibility of all those people? Of course not.

Q. So the phrase goes, "A revolution can only consume its revolutionaries in the end." Do you think that is true?

A. Yeah, it always does. I am much more for a slower revolution . . . For a country to change, no matter where in the world, the culture of the country has to change. That culture takes a long time [to adjust].

Q. You deal a lot with freedoms, personally and socially, in "Persepolis." Do you feel you've achieved your sense of freedom today in France?

A. Oh yes. Oh yes.

Q. What about the people of Iran?

A. Well, I think they are in big trouble. In Iran there is an expression. You say, "In Iran, of course you have freedom of speech. You don't have the freedom after the speech." You can say what you want, but after that, you go to jail.

Q. In "Persepolis," you mention the varied reactions from Iranian women wearing the headscarf during the revolution. Now in France, the government wants a ban on all overt religious symbols, including the headscarf. What is your opinion about that?

A. I think it is stupid. The Iranian regime has forced women to put the scarf on, and as a result nobody wants to put the scarf on.  . . What is happening in France is that now the scarf is becoming a symbol of rebellion . . . I am against any law that forbids. You cannot forbid. It is not because you forbid something that people will stop doing it. That is human nature.  You remember Adam and Eve and the story with the apple? "You can do whatever you want but don't eat the apple." And what was the first thing they did? They ate the apple. Of course, it's human nature.

Q. One last thing. What is your personal philosophy? Is there anything you live by?

A. My personal philosophy? I think it is one of the biggest lies I have ever heard in my life' it is the lie of the civilization. They say that we are civilized. We are not civilized. The only reason we are living in a civilized way is because we are not hungry. They have always told us that people became more and more civilized because they had more needs and that's why they created industry. The reality is that civilization came because of the industry. I tell you, in no mater what city, no matter what country in the world, if you make all the supermarkets empty, you cut the electricity and water, you think that after ten days people won't start eating each other? Of course they will . . .That is the philosophy of my life. I do not believe there is a civilization. I believe original sin exists. I do not believe that people are nice . . . That doesn't mean that I do not have hope. I believe in something, but I think we are living in the worst time in human history. Before anytime there was a war, you knew where it started, you knew when the war finished, you could localize the people, and you knew who your enemy was. Today we are in a situation where everyone is in a fight with everybody, but we don't know the enemy, who we are fighting against.  It makes me feel extremely unsettled about the future.

Q. Well . . . good luck for you in the future. You are very talented. I wish you the best.

A. Thank you very much. I wish you the best too.

Q.  Thank you. Kho'da Ha'faz (Farsi for goodbye).

A. Kho'da Ha'faz. Oh my God, how did you know that?

Q. I dated an Iranian once . . .

A. No? You are telling the truth? If one day, someone would tell me that a guy called Lee would call me from Alaska, and would say, "Kho'da Ha'faz"—or "goodbye"—in my language, I would, say "Yes! That's it! Everything is possible." That is why I have hope in the future or in my own reality, because everything is possible. (Laughs) . . .  Thank you very much. Tonight you have made me very confident about the future. 

Q. Thank you. Bye. Kho'da Ha'faz

A. Kho'da Ha'faz.      

Comment on this story...