When a 10-year-old Marjane Satrapi declared her wish to be a prophet when she grew up, her maternal grandmother offered to be her ‘first disciple’. Over three brilliantly-illustrated autobiographical books, we learned that the reverse was true: it was her strong-willed granny who instilled a spine of steel in curious Marjane. That came of use in exile in Europe as Satrapi’s progressive parents clung to hope even as their beloved Iran faced existential hazards. We learned how generations of Persian women defied misogynistic religious norms both openly and subversively. Today, as Iran faces another existential threat, those intimate portraits of a proud people tell us why the nation is unbending even when battered. It would not be a stretch to see Marjane’s passing this week of ‘sadness’ at her beloved’s passing as another enlightening allegory.
