Marjane Satrapi, (born 1969, Rasht, Iran), Iranian artist, director, and writer whose graphic novels explore the gaps and the junctures between East and West.
Satrapi was the only child of Westernized parents; her father was an engineer and her mother a clothing designer. She grew up in Tehrān, where she attended the Lycée Français. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, her family’s Western way of life drew the attention of Iranian authorities, and by 1984 her parents had decided to send her to Austria to attend school. A failed relationship there exacerbated her sense of alienation and contributed to a downward spiral that left her homeless and using drugs. She returned to Tehrān at age 19, studied art, and, after a short-lived marriage, moved back to Europe in 1993. In France she earned a degree in art, and by the mid-1990s she was living permanently in Paris.
