![\"MSatrapiEmbroideries\"](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/MSatrapiEmbroideries.jpg\")
<\/a><\/div>\nPerhaps the most closely related book is Embroideries <\/i>(2005), <\/i>which opens with a character we know from Persepolis<\/i>: Marji\u2019s grandmother, who is loving and supportive and yet challenges her granddaughter to live according to her own desires and her own ethics. In Embroideries<\/i>, we learn more about Marji\u2019s grandmother and her other female relatives as they gossip over tea \u2013 as the grandmother notes, with her characteristic pointed humor, “To speak behind others’ backs is the ventilator of the heart.”<\/p>\n
The women take turns telling each other stories about their experiences with love, sex, and marriage. The Thousand and One Nights <\/i>echoes throughout Embroideries<\/i>. Though The Thousand and One Nights<\/i> is a classic of Arabic-language literature, it draws on earlier Persian and Indian stories, and it\u2019s significant that Satrapi embraces the story here. But instead of a wife telling tales to amuse her husband \u2013 and secure her own survival \u2013 these women tell each other tales to amuse, enlighten, and provide emotional release. And, like Scheherazade, secure their survival in a world that is not always kind to them.<\/p>\n
The visual texture of this book is immediately appealing. Like Persepolis<\/i>, Embroideries<\/i> uses black-and-white drawings and many of the conventions of comic books for emotional impact. By deceptively simple means \u2013 the linear rendering of hair, nose, eyes, wrinkles \u2013 Satrapi creates characters that have a remarkably distinctive presence on the page.<\/p>\n Chicken with Plums<\/i> (2006), like Persepolis <\/i>and Embroideries,<\/i> draws on Satrapi\u2019s family history but incorporate elements of fairy tale and political allegory. It tells the story of her uncle, a gifted musician who loses the will to live and takes to his bed to die. Chicken with Plums<\/i> is whimsical, moving, and rich with references to Iranian culture and history \u2013 a recurring point of reference is the 1953 coup d\u2019\u00e9tat, orchestrated by Britain and the U.S., that overthrew Iran\u2019s democratically elected government. Despite the arc of the story, the book isn\u2019t fatalistic \u2013 and we, the readers, are left thinking that perhaps the uncle gave up too soon, after all. But was it a dream of love, or democracy?<\/p>\n The live-action film of Chicken with Plums <\/i>(2012),<\/i> directed by Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, her collaborator on the animated Persepolis<\/i>, is readily available on several streaming services and is well worth seeing. Although not animated, its aesthetic is very close to that of the book, emphasizing fantasy and emotional perception as visual reality. The New York Times website<\/a><\/i> offers a slideshow of storyboards and other visuals from the production, providing unusual insight into the filmmaking process.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/div>\n