Tina Becker reviews Marjane Satrapi’s book Persepolis (Jonathan Cape, 2006, pp343, £12.99)

If you haven’t yet got round to reading this highly original look at a young woman’s life in Iran, go and get your copy immediately! The 2006 edition encompasses two separate books: ‘The story of a childhood’ and ‘The story of a return’. Both are currently being made into an animated film, directed by the author and financed by Sony. This is almost as surprising as the fact that the book has been put on the syllabus in 250 American universities.

Of course, the book attacks the islamic regime in Iran, the curtailing of democracy and lack of freedom – and could undoubtedly be seen as a justification for the current pro-war propaganda. But Marjane Satrapi has been very outspoken about her opposition to the war on Iraq and a potential attack on Iran: “If you think you can build a democracy with bombs, you’re not right in the head” (Cafebabel.com, January 27). “Of course this regime shouldn’t have nuclear weapons. But George Bush – this madman who has invaded Iraq and made the region a hundred times more dangerous than it was before – should he have the bomb?” (The Independent October 1 2006).

So this book is highly original in two ways: Firstly, it is written as a ‘graphic novel’ in the tradition of Art Spiegelman’s Maus. It is a comic book, essentially. And a very well done one at that. Satrapi now lives in Paris and works as a professional illustrator.

However, the real strength lies in the political outlook of the young protagonist. She is in the third camp, the camp of genuine democracy and self-liberation. She remembers how her progressive, secular parents took her (then only a small child) to demonstrations against the shah in the late 1970s. She remembers the jubilant mood at the demonstrations, the solidarity and newfound freedoms. How many people (including her) became Marxists in the struggle for liberty and democracy. In an amusing sequence, the Marx of her imagination takes the piss out of Descartes, who denies that the material world exists. Marx takes a (very real) stone and hits Descartes over the head: “Real enough for you?”

Of course, the celebrations didn’t last very long. Described from a little girl’s perspective, the disappointment and fear about the beginning of the ayatollahs’ reign in 1979 is chilling. As are the illusions of her communist uncle, who has “got a degree in Marxism-Leninism” from a university in the USSR. He explains to her family that they shouldn’t worry about the rise of the islamic republic. “In a country where half the population is illiterate you cannot unite the people around Marx. The only thing that can really unite them is nationalism or a religious ethic … But the religious leaders don’t know how to govern. They will return to their mosques. The proletariat shall rule! It’s inevitable! That’s just what Lenin explained in State and revolution.” A few years later, her uncle was executed for being a Russian spy.

Many of the family’s friends and comrades left Iran at that point to seek exile abroad. Other friends who stayed behind were arrested – some were tortured brutally, others never returned home again. Marjane’s family also stayed behind, only to witness the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980. This not only brought real economical hardship for many, but also saw the strengthening of the reactionary regime.

The book is at its strongest when it describes the little things people do to cope with everyday life under the repression of the islamic regime: how her parents tried to defend her right not to wear the veil at school; how girls showed just a bit more hair than was officially allowed; how people get around the fact that a woman and a man can’t walk together on the street if they’re not married; how people danced all night at ‘illegal’ parties, etc.

In another amusing sequence she runs after the bus and is stopped by a revolutionary guard: “You can’t run after the bus,” he says, because “your behind makes movements that are obscene.” Angry that she has missed her bus, she shouts back at him: “Well, don’t look at my arse then.”

Sometimes the book lacks a bit of subtlety and is rather tedious when she describes how she wasted four years as a confused and doped up teenager in Austria in order to show her lack of identity. The book is also not so great when it is trying to explain the reasons for the war: “The entire war was just a big set-up to destroy both the Iranian and Iraqi armies. The west sold weapons to both camps and we were stupid enough to enter into this cynical game.”

But it is a graphic novel after all and a very personal view of her country’s recent history. And as that it really works a treat.