Hudson Literary Review Editorial Staff has always written close to the bone, and Marjane Satrapi, Author of Persepolis, Dies at 56 sharpens that instinct into something approaching grace.

A tribute to the acclaimed Iranian-French author whose groundbreaking graphic memoir Persepolis introduced millions of readers to modern Iranian history and culture.

There are passages in this book that ask to be read twice, not because they are difficult, but because the first reading is too occupied with surprise to register the music underneath.

What the Book Knows

The prose moves like weather. Sentences gather, break, gather again. What looks at first like restraint is, on closer reading, a kind of generosity — the writer trusting the reader to feel the storm without being shown the lightning.

“What looks at first like restraint is, on closer reading, a kind of generosity.”

Plot, in the conventional sense, is almost beside the point. What propels the pages is closer to attention — the writer's, then ours — turning over the ordinary until it gives up its odd, persistent light.

The prose moves like weather. Sentences gather, break, gather again. What looks at first like restraint is, on closer reading, a kind of generosity — the writer trusting the reader to feel the storm without being shown the lightning.

A Letter, Long Withheld

There are passages in this book that ask to be read twice, not because they are difficult, but because the first reading is too occupied with surprise to register the music underneath.

It would be wrong to call Marjane Satrapi, Author of Persepolis, Dies at 56 flawless. It is something better than that: alive.