PARIS, June 5 — Franco-Iranian author and film director Marjane Satrapi, best known for the graphic novel and film “Persepolis”, has died aged 56, AFP learned yesterday from a member of her close circle.

“Marjane Satrapi died of sadness a little over a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life,” they said in a statement sent to AFP.

Ripa, a Swedish producer, actor and screenwriter, died on April 8 last year.

Satrapi, an outspoken critic of Iran’s theocratic government, arrived in France in 1994 and gained French nationality in 2006.

“Persepolis” recounts the story of Satrapi’s early life in Tehran, struggling under the restrictions imposed by Iran’s Islamic leadership after the 1979 revolution, before she is sent to Europe by her parents and begins a life in exile.

Last year, she refused the French legion d’honneur award over the country’s “hypocrisy” in its dealings with Iran, citing French visa policies that prevented dissidents leaving Iran for the European country.

Satrapi directed several films, including a 2007 cinematic adaptation of her graphic novel “Persepolis”, which was co-directed by Vincent Paronnaud, won the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar.

“Even if this is a universal film, I want to dedicate this prize to all Iranians,” Satrapi told AFP at the time.

She was a voice for the women of Iran after protests erupted in the Islamic republic after the 2022 death of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini while in custody for allegedly breaching the dress code for women.

At a protest to mark two years since Amini’s death in Paris, Satrapi was among those chanting “Women, Life, Freedom”.

“It’s very important that this regime disappears,” she said of the Islamic republic, but she stressed it could not happen overnight.

“I think it’s important to remain hopeful,” she added.

Her work expanded beyond stories connected to Iran, including “Radioactive”, a 2019 biopic about pioneering radioactivity researcher and Nobel-prize winner Marie Curie, starring Rosamund Pike.

Her husband, whom she met in Paris, had been a long-time collaborator.

After his death, Satrapi founded the Mattias and Marjane Ripa-Satrapi Cinema Foundation to support foreign students wishing to come to Paris to study filmmaking.

Since his passing, Satrapi’s Instagram page consisted almost exclusively of a series of images spelling out “For I Lost the love of my life”, along with a picture of her husband and an announcement of the foundation. — AFP

The death, attributed to grief, of the cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, author of Persepolis, has brought back a recurring and widely studied question in the public imagination: is it possible to die of grief? Regardless of Satrapi’s personal circumstances — which remain unknown for now — science points to yes, while reframing the romantic idea within a biological explanation. For example, intense bereavement can worsen mental health, trigger cardiovascular problems and, ultimately, raise the risk of death. Satrapi’s family said on Tuesday that she died “of sadness a little more than a year after the death of Mattias Ripa, her husband and the love of her life.” They gave no further details.

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