Marjane Satrapi, author of graphic novel 'Persepolis,' dies at 56
The author is best known for her 2000 autobiographical graphic novel "Persepolis," which chronicled her childhood during and after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution.
PARIS — Marjane Satrapi, the Iranian French artist, filmmaker and author of the autobiographical graphic novel "Persepolis," has died. She was 56.
Satrapi's family confirmed her death in a statement to the French news agency AFP, saying the novelist died of "sadness" a little over a year after the death of her husband, Swedish actor, producer and screenwriter Mattias Ripa. No further information about Satrapi's cause of death was available.
Élysée Palace, the office of French President Emmanuel Macron, paid tribute to Satrapi in an emotional statement on Thursday, June 4.
"Her passing is that of a figure of French culture and of an artist enamored of freedom, whose work carried a universal message and had earned her immense international renown," the Élysée said.
Born in 1969, Satrapi spent her childhood in Tehran in a communist-leaning household. Her parents sent her to Vienna as a teenager, before she returned to Iran to study fine arts and later settled in France, where she continued her training in Strasbourg.
She drew on that life of revolution, exile and return in "Persepolis," the stark black-and-white memoir that chronicled her childhood during and after Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution. The book became an international success and was later adapted into an animated film, which won the jury prize at Cannes and was nominated for an Academy Award.
Satrapi's work mixed political defiance with dark humor and a stripped-down visual style, making her one of the best-known graphic novelists of her generation. She went on to direct films such as "Chicken with Plums" and "The Voices," as well as "Radioactive," a 2019 biopic about scientist Marie Curie.
Satrapi also designed a nine-meter wool triptych for the 2024 Paris Olympics, showing athletes competing around the Eiffel Tower.
The author became a prominent voice on exile, women's freedom and authoritarianism, frequently using her public platform to denounce repression in Iran.
In 2025, she refused the Legion of Honour, France's top order of merit, citing the country's "hypocritical attitude" toward Iran, French media reported at the time.
"I can't continue seeing the children of Iranian oligarchs come to spend their holidays in France, even become naturalized," she wrote, "while at the same time young dissidents have difficulty in obtaining a tourist visa to come to see what the country of the Enlightenment and human rights looks like."