“A symbol of civic commitment led by women” and “one of the most influential people in the dialogue between cultures and generations.” This is how the jury of the Princess of Asturias Award defines Marjane Satrapi, the cartoonist, painter and French-Iranian director who has won the 2024 Communication and Humanities award. A native of Iran, Satrapi lived as a child during the fall of the Shah and the beginning of the Islamic revolution of 1979, which would turn the country into a dictatorial and secular regime in which freedoms, especially those of women, were gradually diluted. Faced with this reality, her family sent Marjane to study in Vienna (Austria) where she would spend her early youth discovering Western life and often not finding her place. Her first publication, and the one that made her rise to fame, was the graphic novel ‘Persepolis’ (2000) in which she narrated her own life and which made Satrapi one of the most recognized French-speaking authors in the world. moment. Later she would publish other works, such as ‘Embroideries’ (2003), or the recent ‘Woman, life and freedom’ (2023), in which she always maintained her roots with Iran and her marked feminist character as the plot axis.
