ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the representational politics of state and dissident martyrdom in post-revolutionary Iran during the 1980–8 Iran-Iraq War and the 2009 Green Movement. In particular, the chapter focuses on the figure of the mourning mother and explores how personal, individualised expressions of maternal grief can either be used to facilitate or to challenge the national political discourse of martyrology in the Islamic Republic of Iran. To develop this discussion, the chapter analyses two Iranian graphic novels: Marjane Satrapi’s renowned Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return (2000–3) and Amir and Khalil’s Zahra’s Paradise (2011). The comics genre—and the distinct narrative structure that emerges from marrying visual and written media—offers up new ways for this book to explore representational politics. The chapter ultimately argues that the innate ‘brokenness’ of the form facilitates a distinctive maternal counter-narrative in response to authoritative political discourses.
