September Books 2) Persepolis
2) Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, by Marjane Satrapi. I bought this today to continue my comics education, from Het Besloten Land, the shop on Parijsstraat in Leuven which seems to have a sense of combining the bandes dessinées tradition and Anglophone graphic novels. Persepolis fits both. Its original language of publication was French, but its story of a young girl's life through the rise of a repressive regime, and her eventual escape, is of course reminiscent of Art Spiegelman's Maus. I learnt a lot from it. OK, it's not an average story - Satrapi's great-grandfather was the emperor overthrown by the last Shah's father in 1925, and she uses this for certain historical insights - but it's a gripping and human tale. One forgets just how much happened in Iran, in terms of total social dislocation, between the start of the narrative in 1979 and the end in 1984. Apparently the sequel will be out in English Real Soon Now. I can't wait.