Or so goes the story that I will write one day, as told by my friend from Iran.
In the meantime, I have been reading Persepolis 2, by Marjane Satrapi. I know I should read Persepolis but it was the second graphic novel that was in the library when I swung by the other day. It was ok. I was not moved to tears. But I enjoyed it, it made me uncomfortable at times but perhaps that was its intent. Some pacing/phrasing seemed awkward but when I read that this was actually a translation from French, I understood where some of that awkwardness might have originated.
Driven to curiosity by this comic book memoir, I searched Google to find out what this artist actually looked like. To my surprise, she is younger than I assumed - born in 1969. I also found this spectacular interview she gave to bookslut. Spectacular because of her irreverence, her political incorrectness (which American author would drop a saying in an interview on translations - how "they are like women, they are either beautiful or unfaithful"?) and mainly because once again I find the resonance of a person displaced by immigration. Not just in a physical sense, but in the realm of soul and identity. "Yes," I found myself saying through the interview. "All too familiar - I know how that goes."