In the following excerpt, Douglas explains how Satrapi's upbringing in Iran and her political views shape Persepolis.

Her books are enjoyable, although that is certainly a strange word to use to describe books that tell about murders, torture, and the repression of an entire population, particularly women. But Satrapi has such a sly sense of humor that she makes her points with bitter laughter in the background. That's the only way to bear oppression, she says in some of her graphic stories.

Her first book tells about her childhood as an upper-class girl whose family, many of whom were communists, opposed the Shah. She and they supported the revolution, which they thought would bring about democracy or the rule by the proletariat, only to find that the result was a fundamentalist Islamic republic that was more repressive than they could have imagined.

Then, in 1981, Iraq attacked Iran...