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Persepolis 2
Persepolis 2
Nov 16, 2024 2:03 AM

Author:Marjane Satrapi

Persepolis 2

Here is the fascinating and equally unforgettable sequel to Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi's memoir-in-comic strips of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Persepolis ended on a cliffhanger in 1984, just as fourteen-year-old Marjane was leaving behind her home in Tehran, escaping fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in the West.

Here we follow our young, intrepid heroine through the next eight years of her life: an eye-opening and sometimes lonely four years of high school in Vienna, followed by a supremely educational and heartwrenching four years back home in Iran. Just as funny and heartbreaking as its predecessor - with perhaps an even greater sense of the ridiculous inspired by life in a fundamentalist state - Persepolis 2 is also as clear-eyed and searing in its condemnation of fundamentalism and its cost to the human spirit. In its depiction of the universal trials of adolescent life and growing into adulthood - here compounded by being an outsider both abroad and at home, and by living in a state where you have no right to show your hair, wear make-up, run in public, date, or question authority - it's raw, honest, and incredibly illuminating.

Reviews

In an industry in which female artists can still be counted on the fingers of a yakuza's hand, her deceptively simple and acutely observed black and white memoirs deserve a wide audience

—— Dominic Wells , The Times

Like Maus, Persepolis is one of those comic books capable of seducing even those most allergic to the genre... The author's masterstroke is to allow us to experience history from within her family, with irony and tenderness.

—— Liberation

I cannot praise enough Marjane Satrapi's moving account of growing up as a spirited young girl in revolutionary and war-time Iran. Persepolis is disarming and often humorous but ultimately it is shattering.

—— Joe Sacco

The Pleeces have fun with madness- both the ‘cap’ and the mental variety, with a deliberate muddying of the line between reality and the psychological.

—— Forbidden Planet

A bleak, if intermittently joyful, mix of social and magical realism, it offers a snapshot of 21st-century stupidity and selfishness.

—— Colin Smith , Q Magazine

A tour de force to rival Maus

—— The Times

An adult and difficult story but [accompanied by] very simple black and white illustrations, comic book style, and it is exceptionally powerful...show the amazing power and depth that can come from a literary story shown through words and images

—— Ink Pellet

The magic of Marjane Satrapi's work is that it can condense a whole country's tragedy into one poignant, funny scene after another.

—— Natasha Walter , Independent on Sunday

Persepolis is a stylish, clever and moving weapon of mass destruction.

—— David Jenkins , Sunday Telegraph

Marjane Satrapi's books are a revelation. They're funny, they're sad, they're hugely readable. Most importantly, they remind you that the media sometimes tell you the facts but rarely tell you the truth. In one afternoon Persepolis will teach you more about Iran, about being an outsider, about being human, than you could learn from a thousand hours of television documentaries and newspaper articles. And you will remember it for a very long time.

—— Mark Haddon

I cannot praise enough Marjane Satrapi's moving account of growing up as a spirited young girl in revolutionary and war-time Iran. Persepolis is disarming and often humorous but ultimately it is shattering.

—— Joe Sacco

Throughout, there are magnificent feats of connectivity, startlingly complex internal monologues that unfold with perfect simplicity… I haven’t encountered a book about being an artist, or about the punishing entanglements of mothers and daughters, as engaging, profound or original as this one in a long time.

—— Rev’d Katie Roiphe , Scotsman

Lively, fresh and expressive…humane, complex and beautiful.

—— Anna Carey , Irish Times

Don’t let the cartoons fool you, this is an exciting and intelligent book and, at many points, highly moving. It doesn’t just tell Alison’s story, Are You My Mother? allows to you to think about your own.

—— Emerald Street

Find everything this author has written. Every jot she makes on the paper enriches the baroque, painful, exhilarating story she has to tell.

—— Candia McWilliam , Scotsman

It’s first and foremost funny, using graphical and verbal tricks to express the psychological dramas of an American household.

—— MacUser

[Sacco’s] ability to cram in detail is extraordinary. And it is the details that linger.

—— The Economist

When stretched to its 24ft length in the Saga Magazine office, we pored over it for ages. We predict you will want to do the same.

—— Saga Magazine

About Joe Sacco’s The Great War, one can write only essays or short, ecstatic sentences... A beautiful accordion-book, it unfolds on the Western Front, with all its monotony and misery: simple, but intricate; wordless, but vocal; brutal, but beautiful. A masterpiece of quietly affecting numbers, the thousands of lines, dots, and crosses that demarcate the thousands of lives, deaths, and crises.

—— Reggie Chamberlain-King , Quietus

The detail in this work is phenomenal, capturing the aloof generals, death in the trenches, and the wounded... [Sacco] makes visceral one of the bloodiest days in history.

—— Socialist Review

Wordless and brilliant.

—— Donal O'Donoghue , RTE Guide

Sometimes words and photographs are not enough… [An] astounding book.

—— Michael Hodges , Mail on Sunday

A unique and unforgettable experience.

—— Matthew Turner , Ask Men

A meticulous visual depiction.

—— Observer
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