Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian cartoonist and filmmaker who created the renowned graphic memoir Persepolis, died June 3 in Paris. She was 56.
A statement from close friends and family sent to the Agence France-Presse newswire announced her death. “Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,” the statement read. Ripa, a producer, actor and screenwriter, died in April 2025.
Born Nov. 22, 1969, in Rasht, Iran, Satrapi had an upper-middle-class upbringing in Tehran. She became one of the most internationally recognized voices of the Iranian diaspora through her writing, artwork and outspoken criticism of Iran’s government.
Persepolis, her autobiographical graphic novel, chronicled her childhood in Tehran during and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, before her parents sent her to Europe to continue her education. It offered a deeply personal account of life under increasing political and social restrictions. The book was published in French in four parts between 2000 and 2003. Persepolis won several awards at the Angoulême International Comics Festival between 2001 and 2005, including the Angoulême Coup de Coeur Award.
“I don’t very much like this term of graphic novel,” she told the New York Times. “I think they made up this term for the bourgeoisie not to be scared of comics. Like, ‘Oh, this is the kind of comics you can read.’ … I’m not a graphic novelist. I am a cartoonist and I make comics and I am very happy about it.”
Pantheon brought the work to the United States, publishing Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood in 2003 and Persepolis: The Story of a Return in 2004. Satrapi followed it with Embroideries and Chicken with Plums, both published by Pantheon. Her children’s book, Monsters Are Afraid of the Moon, was published by Bloombury in 2006, and The Sigh was published by BOOM!’s Archaia imprint in 2011.
In 2007, Satrapi co-directed an animated adaptation of Persepolis with Vincent Paronnaud. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize, and went on to receive Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations. She later directed the dark comedy The Voices starring Ryan Reynolds and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive featuring Rosamund Pike. In 2024, she directed the black comedy Dear Paris, which premiered at the Torino Film Festival.
Satrapi remained a prominent advocate for freedom of expression and women’s rights in Iran. Her final graphic work, Woman, Life, Freedom, published in 2024, documented the protests that swept Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. In January 2025, she refused France’s prestigious Legion of Honour, citing French hypocrisy toward Iran and its lack of support for Iranian dissidents, though she emphasized her deep love for the country itself.
“If I have one message to give to the secular American people, it’s that the world is not divided into countries,” she said. “The world is not divided between East and West. You are American, I am Iranian, we don’t know each other, but we talk together and we understand each other perfectly. The difference between you and your government is much bigger than the difference between you and me. And the difference between me and my government is much bigger than the difference between me and you. And our governments are very much the same.”