A few months back, I revisited a poignant graphic novel that I initially read in high school: Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. But I’d never actually read its sequel, Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.

At the end of the first book, we see Marjane as a teen about to embark on a journey to study in Austria, escaping the increasing weight of war in Iran. This book picks up exactly where the previous one left off. Through Satrapi’s beautiful artwork, we watch as Marjane grows up all alone in Europe – separated from her family and the world around her, feeling like an outsider because of her alienating status as a foreigner. When she finally makes it home to Iran as a young adult, one would imagine she would feel comforted to return to the world she came from – but somehow, she feels even more alien than before. An Iranian in the Western world, and now a Westerner in Iran. No matter where she goes, she’s isolated in an ever-changing world.

Reading about world history through the eyes of civilians who lived it is one of the most important ways we can study what life was truly like for individuals in other countries at the time, particularly during wartime. Textbooks can hold the immediate facts, but eyewitness testimony carries a weight of authenticity that facts alone cannot provide when it comes to understanding the human experience of historical events. This is true of books like [At Gettysburg] by Tillie Pierce Alleman and [Maus] by Art Spiegelman, and, of course, of Satrapi’s Persepolis series.

There are side-by-side panels of major events in wartime paired with Satrapi’s recollections of her girlhood and what it means to be a girl in an oppressed state. Amidst the heaviness of war, there’s wit and creativity spread throughout, never diminishing the seriousness of what is happening but reminding us of the ordinary life continuing within it.

This is an especially important read now that Satrapi has passed on because, as I’ve said of similar books before, this is a voice that can never be silenced. Her work will long outlive her, as it should.