{"id":36032,"date":"2026-07-23T08:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-23T08:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=36032"},"modified":"2026-07-22T17:13:03","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T17:13:03","slug":"embroideries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2026\/07\/23\/embroideries\/","title":{"rendered":"Embroideries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\" \"\"
\nBy Marjane Satrapi<\/strong>, translated by Anjali Singh<\/strong> (Pantheon Graphic Libraries\/Jonathan Cape)
\nISBN: 978-0-37542-305-5 (Pantheon HB\/Digital edition) 978-0-22407-440-7 (Cape TPB)<\/p>\n

This book includes Discriminatory Content<\/strong> used for dramatic effect. <\/em><\/p>\n

The recent loss of one of our art form\u2019s most successful and influential exponents still hasn\u2019t prompted any kind of rush to republish, so here I am suggesting the first of a few books that could do with prompt rereleasing. <\/em><\/p>\n

When Marjane Satrapi died on June 4th<\/sup> this year, her comics canon included the astounding memoirs Persepolis <\/strong>and sequel Persepolis<\/strong> – The Story of a Return<\/strong>; her similarly award-winning graphic novel Chicken With Plums<\/strong> and others such as The Sigh<\/strong>, Monsters are Afraid of the Moon<\/strong>, and this sublime peek behind the strictly policed curtain of modern Iranian life.<\/p>\n

Another wickedly barbed commentary and autobiographical revelation first seen in French in 2003 as L\u2019Association\u2019s Broderies<\/em><\/strong>, the English-language version Embroideries<\/strong> was released two years later, again employing the potent primitivist imagery of a child\u2019s eyes. Via ostensibly unrefined stylings and the shaded remembrances of a girl maturing in an age of unrest and (necessarily) guarded innocence, Satrapi revisited Tehran in 1991 and relates here conversations with older women that at last included her. Returned as a young woman, she saw through far more sophisticated eyes and speaks here with a mature voice, sharing what the oppressed, sequestered women of her kin and the country were doing when the men were all off \u201crunning\u201d things…<\/p>\n

Generally, that was drinking tea, sewing and gossiping: trading experiences and stories, suspicions and suppositions about relationships, men, sex, virginity and its surgical repair…<\/p>\n

The setting and staging are restricted and formal: seven characters interacting and telling tales in one room, just as if the sole proscenium set in a play.
\n\"\"
\nFollowing a contextualising \u2018Prologue\u2019<\/em> setting the kaffeeklatsch scene and introducing recurring chatterers Marji<\/em>, her forthright, wise (opium-addicted) grandmother, tolerant mother, some aunts and a few close chums – like Parvine<\/em> and Amineh<\/em> – the ground-rules are established before the wide-ranging discourses are shared in secure comfort. Sans any male presence or shocked oversight, the women settle down to lively discourse and conversations turn to arranged marriage, cosmetic surgery, adultery, and virginity… although all the needles out are verbal for these \u2018Embroideries\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Topics ebb and flow, such as how as a knowledgeable teen herself, Mom helped her friend Nahid<\/em> fake her wedding night virginity, or how to have four kids without ever seeing a male member.
\n\"\"
\nThe subjects expand to encompass the ups and downs of frequent divorce and easy remarriage; European vs Muslim men; generals, aristocrats and 13-year-old brides; men\u2019s fragile pride, unavoidable infidelity and constant lies; why woman have to be virgins but men don\u2019t; why it\u2019s better to be a mistress than a wife; the uselessness of employing magicians to solve marital problems; how to catch your spouse cheating; physical improvements and cosmetic surgeries and, inescapably, labial repair, reshaping and reconstruction.<\/p>\n

Apparently, in common Farsi parlance among women in the know, such renovations and alterations are coyly or obliquely termed \u201cembroideries\u201d…
\n\"\"
\nBorn in 1969, the author grew up during the Fundamentalist revolution that toppled the Shah of Iran and replaced him with an Islamic theocracy. Here, however, her recollections and hilariously forthright pictorial reconstructions wryly shine a light on the concerns and lives of her theocratically oppressed female relatives, neighbours and friends, drawing back a veil of state-sanctioned secrecy and institutionalised invisibility with little attention paid to the men in her life. Again Satrapi curates incidents with her starkly primal and forthright art drawing a curtain on life under theocratic dictatorship. However, unlike her global breakout hits Persepolis <\/strong>and Persepolis<\/strong> – The Story of a Return<\/strong>, this is not a personal drama set against a political backdrop but the potent testimony of an entire gender unbowed under oppressive bootheels millennia old, and as always the response is managed resistance, scorn and derision…<\/p>\n

Graphic narrative is as much an art form of craft, profound thought and social change as it can be the dustbin of sophomoric genre stereotyping many critics still regard it as and relegate it to. Marjane Satrapi created works both powerful and engaging and of lasting merit and entertainment value. Embroideries<\/strong> is one book that not only touches comics fans, but also the entire general public, and should not be something you still have to be convinced to read.<\/p>\n

Originally published in France as Broderies by L\u2019Association, Paris in 2003. \u00a9 2003 by L\u2019Association, 16 rue de la Pierre Levee, 75011 Paris, Translation \u00a9 2004 Anjali Singh.
\n\u00a9 Marjane Satrapi 2005.<\/p>\n

Today in 1888 master cartoonist Gluyas Williams <\/strong>(Fellow Citizens<\/strong>; Life<\/strong>, Collier\u2019s<\/strong>, Century<\/strong>, The New Yorker<\/strong>, <\/em>The Plain Dealer<\/strong>) was born, preceding both strip cartoonist Gus Arriola<\/strong> (Gordo<\/strong>) and comics writer France<\/strong> \u201cEd<\/em><\/strong>\u201d Herron<\/strong> (Captain America<\/strong>, Captain Marvel Jr<\/strong>, Batman<\/strong>, Tomahawk<\/strong>, Challengers of the Unknown<\/strong>, Davy Crockett, Frontiersman<\/strong>, Nero Wolfe<\/strong>) in 1917; Argentinian writer H\u00e9ctor Germ\u00e1n Oesterheld<\/strong> (Sgt<\/em><\/strong> Kirk<\/em><\/strong>, Ernie Pike<\/strong>, Roland el Corsario<\/em>, El Eternauta<\/em><\/strong>, Mort Cinder<\/strong>, Vida del Che<\/em><\/strong>) in 1919. In 1947, artist Mike Vosburg<\/strong> (Tales from the Crypt<\/strong>, Savage She-Hulk<\/strong>, Sisterhood of Steel<\/strong>, Bloodshot<\/strong>, Archer & Armstrong<\/strong>) joined the party as did artists Kelley Jones<\/strong> (Micronauts<\/strong>, Batman<\/strong>, Deadman<\/strong>, The Sandman<\/strong>) and Dale Keown<\/strong> (Incredible Hulk<\/strong>, The Darkness<\/em>, Pitt<\/strong>) in 1962.<\/p>\n

Today in 2017 the incredible Flo Steinberg <\/strong>– secret power behind the rise of Marvel Comics – died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Marjane Satrapi, translated by Anjali Singh (Pantheon Graphic Libraries\/Jonathan Cape) ISBN: 978-0-37542-305-5 (Pantheon HB\/Digital edition) 978-0-22407-440-7 (Cape TPB) This book includes Discriminatory Content used for dramatic effect. The recent loss of one of our art form\u2019s most successful and influential exponents still hasn\u2019t prompted any kind of rush to republish, so here I am … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Embroideries”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[299,104,122,125,170],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36032","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feminism-sexual-politics","category-graphic-autobiography","category-historical","category-humour","category-non-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-9na","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36032","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36032"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36032\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36039,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36032\/revisions\/36039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}