***Online event - Zoom link will be sent to you on the day of the event***
Cliterature, the Vagina Museum's book club, offers you a generous and satisfying fingering through the feminist pages. We’ll include a mixture of fiction, non-fiction, essays and poetry. Everyone is welcome. Our book club is led by former trustee, Niharika Jain.
📖📖📖
About the book
Wise, often funny, sometimes heart-breaking, Persepolis tells the story of Marjane Satrapi's life in Tehran , growing up during the Iranian Revolution. The intelligent and outspoken child of radical Marxists, and the great-grandaughter of Iran's last emperor, Satrapi bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country. Persepolis paints an unforgettable portrait of daily life in Iran and of the bewildering contradictions between home life and public life.
Amidst the tragedy, Marjane's child's eye view adds immediacy and humour, and her story of a childhood at once outrageous and ordinary, beset by the unthinkable and yet buffered by an extraordinary and loving family, is immensely moving. 'The magic of Marjane Satrapi's work is that it can condense a whole country's tragedy into one poignant, funny scene after another' Independent on Sunday **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY**
About the author
Marjane Satrapi was born in 1969 in Rasht, Iran. She grew up in Tehran, where she studied at the French school, before leaving for Vienna and Strasbourg to study decorative arts. She is also the author of several children's books.
Satrapi published the books Persepolis 1 (2000) and Persepolis 2 (2001) in France; they were combined as Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood when translated into English in 2003. In Persepolis, she used a stripped-down visual style to tell the story of her childhood in Tehrān. A restive adolescent who loves Nike shoes and rock music, she is stopped and threatened with arrest for wearing those shoes as she walks through a city damaged by bombing raids during the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88). Sometimes described as a graphic memoir, Persepolis melds the format of a graphic novel with a prose-only memoir. Satrapi adapted her book as a film, also called Persepolis (2007), which was nominated for an Academy Award for best animated feature.
Where to find the book
If you can, try to get your hands on a copy via your local independent bookshop or library as a physical book, e-book or audiobook.
As this is a participatory event by nature, not a performance, anyone who doesn't engage - which can via audio, text, or any method accessible to you - will be automatically removed to ensure safety of all participants. Don’t worry if you’ve not finished the book in time for the session, having read some or most of it will help you take part in our discussion.
Live transcription will be enabled on Zoom for all our events. If you need a transcript after the event, please email us at info@vaginamuseum.co.uk to get a copy.
Sign up to the Cliterature e-news for book club summaries, giveaways and more!