Episode 26
March 19, 2020

Persepolis

Hosted by Chris Piuma and Suzanne Conklin Akbari

That night I stayed a very long time in the bath. I wanted to know what it felt like to be in a cell filled with water. GOD (sitting next to the narrator, a young girl, as she takes a bath): What are you doing? My hands were wrinkled when I came out, like Grandpa’s.

Marjane Satrapi was ten years old at the start of the Iranian Revolution, and her comics memoir Persepolis explores what it was like to grow up in that environment. It’s a story of the Iranian Revolution, which began in 1979, but it’s also the story of one individual life in a time of great crisis, moving into the Iranian diaspora. Chris and Suzanne discuss this personal story of revolution, how a child’s understanding of events can be useful for introducing topics to readers, and the difficulties of talking about comics on podcasts.

Show Notes.