French-Iranian artist and author Marjane Satrapi has died at the age of 56.
The Élysée Palace announced her death, saying that her work “captivated a global audience,” CNN reported.
“Her passing marks the loss of a leading figure in French culture and an artist deeply committed to freedom, whose work carried a universal message and earned her immense international acclaim,” the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.
The office did not say when she died, where she passed or what caused her death, The New York Times reported.
A statement from “close friends and family” sent a message to France’s AFP newswire saying that she died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,” Variety reported. Ripa died on April 8, 2025.
The Narges Foundation, an Iranian women’s human rights organization, said “she was a fearless advocate for feminism, women’s rights” who “champion(ed) the struggles and resilience of Iranian women.”
Satrapi was born in 1969 in Iran to an upper-middle-class family. She was 10 when the Ayatollah Khomeini came to power.
She went to Austria for her education and studied art in Tehran and Strasbourg before moving to Paris in 1994, the Times reported.
Satrapi turned her life story into an autobiographical graphic novel titled “Persepolis,” which follows her life as she grows up during the Iranian Revolution.
Variety said the book “offers a wry, satirical take on the oppressive life under the rule of the mullahs.”
The graphic novel was adapted into a movie, which was nominated for an Oscar in 2008.
Satrapi said she never liked the term “graphic novel.”
“I think they made up this term for the bourgeoisie not to be scared of comics,” she told the Times in 2007. “Like, ‘Oh, this is the kind of comics you can read.’”
Her last film, “Dear Paris,” came out in 2024 and focuses on characters who confront death but through that embrace life, Variety reported.
She was awarded France’s Legion d’Honneur, but declined it over the country’s “hypocrisy” in dealing with Iran, Variety reported.
“I can’t ignore what I see as a hypocritical attitude toward Iran, which forged the other part of my identity,” she wrote to France’s culture minister.
“I can’t continue seeing the children of Iranian oligarchs come to spend their holidays in France, even become naturalised, while at the same time young dissidents have difficulty in obtaining a tourist visa to come to see what the country of the Enlightenment and human rights looks like," she said.
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