Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi dies aged 56
Acclaimed French-Iranian author, artist and film director Marjane Satrapi has died aged 56. In a statement shared with AFP and reported in Le Monde, "people close to her" said: "Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life."
Ripa, a Swedish actor, screenwriter and producer, died on 8th April 2025. Later that month, a series of posts on Satrapi’s Instagram account revealed the words: "For I lost the love of my life."
Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran, and grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the French School before leaving for Vienna and then Strasbourg to study illustration. She lived in Paris and regularly contributed illustrations to newspapers and magazines internationally, including the New Yorker.
She is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning graphic memoir Persepolis, described by her UK publisher Jonathan Cape as a "seminal work of the graphic novel genre, which we’re tremendously proud to publish on the Jonathan Cape graphic novels list".
Satrapi lived through the Iranian Revolution as a child, and Persepolis is "her classic memoir-in-comic-strips, the story of a child entangled in the history and politics of her country". PRH’s blurb goes on: "It paints an unforgettable portrait of growing up in revolutionary and war-torn Iran, in a family that was both outrageous and ordinary, beset by tragedy and yet buffered by love."
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In 2008 the film adaptation of the same name was released, co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Satrapi and later nominated for best animated feature at the Oscars. In a statement Jonathan Cape said: "Marjane has been, and will continue to be, a huge influence on new generations of graphic novelists and memoirists."
Her UK publisher, Hannah Westland, told The Bookseller: "It has been our honour at Jonathan Cape to publish Marjane Satrapi and her trail-blazing books. We are deeply saddened by her passing and know that her books will continue to be read and cherished all over the world."
Satrapi supported protests for freedom and rights against the regime in Iran, publishing collaborative graphic book Woman, Life, Freedom (Seven Stories Press UK) which features essays, reportage and comics from 17 Iranian and international artists, and leading a protest in 2023 outside the Iranian embassy in Paris in solidarity with five Tehran teenagers arrested for posting a TikTok video dancing.
Catherine Taylor from Seven Stories Press UK, which published the English translation of Woman, Life, Freedom in 2024, said: "We are shocked and saddened at the death of Marjane Satrapi having recently worked closely with her on her last book. Marjane was a shining light in the world of human rights, a brilliant artist, film-maker and writer, and above all a force for good in the world. She will be much missed."
In a statement, the Élysée Palace in Paris described Satrapi as "a leading figure in French culture and an artist devoted to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international renown" who "captivated a global audience with Persepolis".
