Iranian author talks about her influences, muses

Talking dogs, Iranian democracy, a childhood love of Batman comics, and 50 “arrogant” paintings destroyed were all part of a fast-paced discussion by Marjane Satrapi, who spoke Wednesday evening in the McMaster Center of the Main Library.

Born nearly 44 years ago in Iran (ear-ran, she said, not eye-ran as George Bush pronounced it) and living for the last 20 years in Paris, Ms. Satrapi overflows with ebullience. She was interviewed by Kurt Franck, vice president and executive editor of The Blade, before a sold-out audience of 312. Her appearance was part of the 21st season of Authors! Authors!, presented by The Blade and the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library.

Author, painter, and filmmaker, Ms. Satrapi is touring the United States in support of a film she directed, Voices, expected to be released in early 2015. It’s about a likeable schizophrenic who becomes a serial killer despite his talking dog’s best advice.

“I really studied the musculature of the dog to see how they moved,” she said.

Her reputation has ascended steadily since publication of her first book, Persepolis, in 2000. The graphic novel, or comic book, about her schoolgirl life in Tehran during tempestuous political times, became an international hit, and Wednesday’s audience included many students and teachers who said they’d read it.

Persepolis was made into an animated film using her images. A second volume followed, as did other graphic novels, one of which, Chicken with Plums, based on an Iranian tale, became a live-action film.

“I like the stress. I like the problems,” she said of making films that require big bucks and big groups of people whose opinions must be considered.

To questions such as, “What did you want to be when you were a child?” and “What will your next project be,” she had the same answer: she doesn’t make plans.

“If something exciting comes, I will not refuse it.”

When asked what humbles her, she requested an explanation of the word, and an Iranian man quietly translated it into Persian. She’s familiar with arrogance, she said. After showing a film at the Cannes Film Festival in France a few years ago, she found she was growing full of herself.

“I made 50 paintings,” planning an exhibition. When she looked at them later, she saw schlock. “The only thing that could make them look good was my own arrogance. I destroyed all of them.”

“Then I painted for the passion for the art and not the arrogance of the moment.” Keeping her grounded, she said, are family and friends.

“I’m not surrounded by people who want to kiss my hands.”

While not a student of Iran’s politics, she said 65 percent of Iranian university students are female. They will get decent jobs that will provide them with independence. “Until we break traditions, there will be no democracy. We think that’s happening.”

Next up in the Authors! Authors! series will be Elizabeth Gilbert, who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, on Nov. 19 in the Stranahan Theater. Tickets are on sale at library branches. Next year’s speakers will be Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, on March 18, novelist Sandra Cisneros on April 22, and celebrity chef Jacques Pepin with his daughter, Claudine Pepin, May 13.

Read more at http://www.toledoblade.com/Books/2014/10/23/Iranian-author-talks-about-her-influences-muses.html#lo6zE5qiGIyUtDss.99