زن آزادی زندگی
Review of the Seven Stories Press paperback (March 19, 2024) translated by Una Dimitrijevic from the French language original "Femme vie liberté" (November 14, 2023).

On September 16, 2022, in Iran, Mahsa Amini succumbed to beatings from the morality police because she had not worn her veil "well." Her death sparked a wave of protests across the country, which turned into an unprecedented women’s movement. One year later, Marjane Satrapi and Abbas Milani discuss her death, the fight for women’s rights in Iran, and the new book "Woman, Life, Freedom" (L ‘Iconoclast). In this book, Marjane Satrapi brought together three specialists: Farid Vahid, political scientist, Jean-Pierre Perrin, acclaimed reporter, Abbas Milani, historian, and seventeen of the greatest cartoonists from Europe, the United States, and Iran to tell the story of this major event for Iran, and for all of us. - excerpt from the printed introduction to the video linked below.

Marjane Satrapi is primarily known for her biographical graphic novel The Complete Persepolis (2000-2003) and its later film adaptation. She has worked on later graphic novels such as Chicken with Plums (2004), but has devoted herself more to film production and directing in recent years. The murder of Mahsa Amini by the Iranian regime provoked her to return to graphic art in a limited fashion (she draws some panels in this book) but mainly to act as coordinator for its overall writing and illustrating.

Several editors and writers along with a few dozen illustrators (many of them like Satrapi being Iranian ex-pats) produce 25 separate stories / vignettes / editorials / discussions about the Mahsa Amini murder and the resulting rise of the "Woman Life Freedom" movement of resistance and protest in Iran which operates under the perilous conditions of the repressive authoritarian regime. The stories here are broken into 3 sections: The Events. A Bit of History and An Iron Regime...A People Resisting.

See image at https://img.lemde.fr/2023/09/08/133/0/2148/1074/2048/1024/45/0/58c712d_169416815...
"An Iron Regime ... A People Resisting." Image sourced from an article at the English language edition of Le Monde. Behind a paywall, but the beginning of the article is viewable.

The overall impression is an overwhelming one of the courage of the people especially the women, who quietly work towards a future liberation of Iran from its repression. One comment predicts that although the regime has survived 45 years, it will not be around for the 50th.

Trivia and Links
There is a discussion about the original French language publication of the book on YouTube at Stanford Iranian Studies Program channel. The discussion is in Persian but you can turn on subtitles in almost any language. There is also a link to the Persian translation of the book which is here. ( )