When, after waiting in a long line, I got her to autograph my books and DVD, I mentioned that I was reading her stuff as part of the Stanford University alumni discussion group, she said she hadn’t heard that Persepolis was being so featured and expressed appreciation for the interest.

English is her fourth language (after Farsi, German and French) and she said that she had never formally studied it, just picked it up from watching American cinema. Yet when speaking English in person, she was as spontaneously articulate and funny as in her comics and film, originally produced in French.

I discovered that she had given a talk about her work five years ago at the Philadelphia library, available as streaming audio at: http://libwww.freelibrary.org/podcast/media/20040907-marjane.mp3

Stay tuned. I’ll let you know if the present talk also goes online.

Marjane Satrapi is speaking about her book Persepolis at the Free Library next Wednesday evening (9/23). Also, Persepolis has been chosen as the 2010 One Book, One Philadelphia selection.

Marjane Satrapi was born in Rasht, Iran, and now lives in Paris, where she is a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers across the globe, including the New Yorker and The New York Times. She is the author of Embroideries, Chicken with Plums, and several children’s books. Persepolis I and II, Satrapi’s autobiographical account of her childhood during and after the Islamic Revolution, was first published in France, where it was met with enormous critical acclaim, garnered comparisons to Art Spiegelman’s Maus, and won several prestigious comic book awards. She co-wrote and co-directed the animated feature film adaption of Persepolis.

Ms. Satrapi is the author of this year’s One Book, One Philadelphia featured reading selection, The Complete Persepolis. Don’t miss your only chance to see Ms. Satrapi live in Philadelphia!