A comic book might not deserve a review. It is usually lacking literary value and is just written for teenager. But this one is different. It was written, yes, I prefer to describe it as written instead of drawn, because it is a literary piece of art instead of a comic book. An Iranian writer wrote the book, and the story follows the life of a 10-year-old girl in Iran in 1980 all through her life until she becomes a grown woman. Now, we should pretty much guess how the plot goes.
We all know that Iran experienced a revolution back in 1979, which turned the country upside down, not only politically, but also economically and culturally. The country closed itself up ever since that we all might mistakenly think that Iran has always been so conservative (arguably, as one will find out really early in the book), and so evil (to be honest, I cannot name one thing that is evil about Iran but mysteriously, when one thinks of Iran, one thinks of evil, why?).
I believe many people know about the revolution happened in Iran, mainly because of the United States embassy incident or if one watched the 2012 movie, Argo. Some people who are interested to learn about the history of that time, like me, might know a bit more in which the revolution was against the Shah at that time and the young people demanded democracy. But it always troubles me on the fact that as we all know the Shah at that time had a close relationship with the United States, and the United States usually automatically means democracy. Then why the Iranian student surrounded the United States’ embassy for months and then wanted to out the Shah so much, if they are looking for democracy. Was the Shah a dictator in which the United States support? The book reveals that it is a rather complicated situation and it offered a glimpse of the reason why Iran became conservative to the extreme that women suddenly require to wear the burka which covers from head to toe. In contrast, before 1979 they wear western clothes. I always believe one needs to dig deeper into a country’s history before they make a judgement. Iran was not a new country. In fact, Iran’s history dated almost two thousand years back to Persia’s Achaemenid Empire in which its capital was named Persepolis, the name of this book. Iran should not be defined by the burka but the long history that last and stays culturally until this day.