Oscar-nominated Persepolis author Marjane Satrapi dies aged 56

French-Iranian author, illustrator, director and activist Marjane Satrapi, best known for her graphic novel series and film Persepolis, has died aged 56, the Élysée Palace in Paris has confirmed.

She "captivated a global audience with Persepolis", the palace said, calling her "a leading figure in French culture and an artist devoted to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international renown".

Persepolis, first published in 2000, follows the story of young Marjane growing up amid the Iranian Revolution, also known as the Islamic Revolution. Eight years later, the film adaptation was nominated for best animated feature at the Oscars, having been co-directed by Satrapi.

News agency AFP quoted a "member of her close circle" as saying she had "died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life".

France President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute to "a great artist who transformed an Iranian childhood into a universal fable".

The palace added: "With her childlike perspective, her irony, her tenderness, and her inner demons, the author created a deeply moving world with which readers identified."

Satrapi was an outspoken critic of Iran's government, and Persepolis - her graphic novel memoir-turned bestseller - depicts her childhood in the Iranian capital of Tehran, struggling under the rules imposed by Iran's Islamic leadership following the 1979 revolution.

It then goes on to follow her as she is sent to Europe by her parents to begin a life in exile.

Satrapi told the Guardian in 2024 that Persepolis was about making western readers reflect on the humanity of Iranian people, and to realise: "Oh, they're actually human beings like us".

The film version stars Chiara Mastroianni as young Marjane and Catherine Deneuve as her mother.

President of the French National Assembly, Yaël Braun-Pivet, posted on X that France had lost "an immense artist".

She said: "Marjane Satrapi had turned her work into an act of freedom. With Persepolis, she had given a face and a voice to the Iranian revolution, proudly carrying the fight for women's freedom and dignity."

Satrapi studied in Austria for four years as a teenager at the prestigious Lycée Français de Vienne.

She returned home for a period, after a serious bout of bronchitis, to find a much changed Tehran - as depicted in the second book in the Persepolis series.

She gained a master's degree in visual communication from the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, and also married but then divorced.

Her parents urged her to leave