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As background to the locations described in the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, readers can view and download a map of Iran from the United Nations Cartographic Section website in pdf format.

Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic novel Persepolis, was interviewed for an article by Simon Hattenstone in the London Guardian newspaper in March 2008, just before release of the film version of Persepolis.

Iranians have always called their country Iran (Land of the Aryans, “noble people”), but outsiders long used “Persia” (Parsa; Gk., Persis), referring to Pars, now Fars, a southern province. “Persia” remained in use…

550-330 B.C.E. Achaemenid dynasty rules the first Persian Empire. The city of Persepolis, was founded in 518 B.C.E. 1914-1918 Iran declares neutrality during World War I. 1923–1926 Reza Khan is named…

The Age-Old Modesty of the Veil: Banning the Veil in Iran (1930s) By Sattareh Farman Farmaian When my mother had learned that she was to lose the age-old modesty of her veil, she was beside herself. She and all traditional people regarded Reza's…

Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi's inventive, wry, and tragic memoir of growing up in Tehran in the 1980s—the tumultuous years when the Islamic Revolution took hold in Iran and the country fought off an invasion from neighboring Iraq. Using a…

Composed in the twelfth century in northeastern Iran, Farid ud-Din Attar’s acclaimed Sufi poem is among the most significant works of Persian literature. A mystical, allegorical rendering of Sufi belief, The Conference of the Birds takes the…