Persepolis II

The sequel to Persepolis covers Marjane Satrapi's life from age 14 through 22. The beginning starts off with her living in Austria in a boarding house run by nuns. Eventually she leaves to live with her friend Julie. There, she explores western culture while growing up physically. When she comes to terms with herself, she goes to live in a wohngemeinschaft, which is a kind of communal apartment. Her mother coes to visit for awhile, and helps Marjane to find new lodgings. In the months following, she has problems with her boyfriend and at the university, which eventually convinces her to return to her parents' home in Tehran. Through the next few years, she meets someone, gets married at 21, and gets divorced. The book ends in June 1994, with Marjane leaving to go to the School of Decorative Arts in Strasbourg.

That's just the basic outline. There is really so much more to these books. The issues she covers are complex, personal, political, moral. Although the format would possibly lend itself to elementary, due to the sensitive issues inside I wouldn't recommend it to anyone before late junior high. It is wonderfully accessible, though, and it would be nice if parts were included in world studies classes. I've liked graphic novels for years, but this is the first I've read from the Middle East, and the first autobiography. In many ways, I love how the world is becoming more globalized. American comic books sparked interest in Japan through America's occupation during WWII. By the 70's, manga had been developed in Japan and American comic books were extremely successful. And now for the past few years, manga has been gaining popularity in the US. The fact that this back and forth has attracted attention in the Middle East along the way is very encouraging to me. A woman from Iran has taken a form that is not native to her country, and used it to tell parts of her life. She tells it with humor and conviction, and while being sensitive to all aspects as far as I can tell, she still lays the bald truth out there. For that, I admire her.