Iranian graphic novel author and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, best known for Persepolis, a graphic novel where she remembers her childhood in Iran during the Islamic Revolution, has died at the age of 56. Her family sent a statement to AFP, saying she "died of sadness, a little over a year after the death of her husband and love of her life", the Swedish producer, actor and writer Mattias Ripa, who died on April 8, 2025.
Satrapi was ten when the 1979 Iranian Revolution took place, enforcing Islamic fundamentalism and repression towards women and opponents to the Shah' regime. Satrapi, of middle-upper class, went to study to Austria and eventually moved permanently to France, where she published the autobiographical comics Persepolis in four volumes between 2000 and 2003, and went on to become one of the most acclaimed and influential comics of the 21st century.
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Satrapi co-directed the film adaptation, released in 2007, winner of the Jury Prize in Cannes and nominated for the Academy Awards. Satrapi also directed the animated film Chicken with Plums, based on her own graphic novel, and the live action films The Voices, Radioactive, and Paradis Paris.
She was awarded with the Princess of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in 2024, with the jury describing her as "a symbol of civic engagement led by women" and "one of the most influential people in the dialogue between cultures and generations" (via El País). In 2025, she was awarded the Legion of Honor in France but declined it because of the "hypocritical attitude on the part of France toward Iran", referring to the visa policies that prevented dissidents leaving Iran.