World · Art & Culture
Key Facts
—The loss: Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian graphic novelist and filmmaker behind Persepolis, has died at 56.
—The announcement: Her death was confirmed by her family in a statement to the AFP news agency and acknowledged by French President Emmanuel Macron.
—The context: Relatives said she died of sadness a little over a year after her husband, Mattias Ripa, died in April 2025.
—The work: Her autobiographical Persepolis, published from 2000 to 2003, sold millions and was made into an Oscar-nominated 2007 film.
—The cause: A formal cause of death was not made public.
She turned a childhood under Iran’s Islamic Revolution into one of the most widely read graphic memoirs ever made, and became a global voice for women’s freedom in the process.
Marjane Satrapi, the French-Iranian artist, author and film director whose graphic memoir Persepolis introduced millions of readers around the world to life under Iran’s Islamic Republic, has died in Paris at the age of 56. Her death was announced on Thursday in a statement from her family sent to the AFP news agency, and was acknowledged by the office of French President Emmanuel Macron. A formal cause of death was not disclosed.
How Persepolis made Marjane Satrapi a global voice
Born in 1969 in Rasht, in northern Iran, and raised in an upper-middle-class, politically active family in Tehran, Satrapi was a child when the 1979 revolution remade her country. Her parents sent her to Europe as a teenager to escape the new regime’s restrictions, and she settled permanently in France in 1994, gaining French citizenship in 2006. Out of that upbringing came Persepolis, an autobiographical graphic novel published in four French volumes between 2000 and 2003 and later condensed into two English editions. Rendered in stark black-and-white panels, it told the story of a girl coming of age amid revolution, war and exile, and it became a publishing phenomenon, selling well over a million copies and drawing comparisons to Art Spiegelman’s Maus for lifting the comic-book form to literary status.
From the page to the screen
Rather than sell the film rights to Hollywood, Satrapi chose to direct the adaptation herself, co-directing the 2007 animated Persepolis with Vincent Paronnaud. The film shared the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and earned a nomination for best animated feature at the Academy Awards. She went on to a varied directing career that crossed languages and genres, including the live-action Chicken with Plums in 2011, the English-language horror-comedy The Voices in 2014, and the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive in 2019, starring Rosamund Pike. Her final feature, the ensemble drama Dear Paris, premiered in Turin in 2024.
An activist to the end
Satrapi remained a vocal critic of Iran‘s theocratic government throughout her life and an advocate for women’s rights and freedom of expression. She was a prominent supporter of the protests that swept Iran after the 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, helping curate a collection of graphic stories under the movement’s “Woman, Life, Freedom” banner. Her stature was formally recognized in 2024 with Spain’s prestigious Princess of Asturias Award. Paying tribute, Macron described her as a great artist who turned her Iranian childhood into a universal tale. The Cannes festival’s longtime director, Thierry Frémaux, called her an extraordinary artist who embodied both the joy of creation and the sorrow of exile. She is survived, in her readers, by a body of work that made a personal history into a story recognized the world over.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Marjane Satrapi?
A French-Iranian graphic novelist, illustrator and filmmaker, best known for the autobiographical Persepolis, and a lifelong advocate for women’s rights.
How did she die?
A formal cause was not made public. Her family said she died of sadness a little over a year after her husband, Mattias Ripa, died in April 2025.
What is Persepolis about?
It is an autobiographical graphic novel about a girl growing up in Iran during and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, later adapted into an Oscar-nominated film.
What other films did she make?
She directed Chicken with Plums (2011), The Voices (2014), the Marie Curie biopic Radioactive (2019) and Dear Paris (2024).
Connected Coverage
Satrapi’s death lands during a busy cultural moment in Latin America, from Mexico’s World Cup film series to the region’s largest tech gathering in Rio.
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