Persepolis 2 The Story of a Return

In Persepolis, heralded by the Guardian as a 'touching, funny, illuminating memoir' and the Sunday Telegraph as a 'stylish, clever and moving weapon of mass destruction', Marjane Satrapi dazzled us with her heart rending memoir in comic strips about growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Here is the continuation of her fascinating story. In 1984, Marjane flees fundamentalism and the war with Iraq to begin a new life in Vienna. Once there, our young heroine faces the trials of adolescence far from her friends and family, surrounded by people who have no way of understanding her experience. Although she soon carves out a place for herself among a group of fellow outsiders, she continues to struggle for a sense of belonging. Finding that she misses her family and her culture more than she can bear, Marjane decides to return to Iran after graduation. Her difficult homecoming forces her to confront the changes both she and her country have undergone in her absence. Aware of all that her family has endured and ashamed of what she perceives as her failure in Austria, Marjane allows her past to weigh heavily on her until she finds some like minded friends, falls in love, and begins studying art at university. However, the repression and state sanctioned chauvinism eventually lead her to question whether she can have a future in Iran.