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Migrant Literature as Transnational Literature in Women's Fiction Recorded at the RECET Festival of Historical and Social Sciences "Migration & Transformation" at the University of Vienna, this episode brings together historian and literary scholar Zsófia Lóránd (University of Vienna / RECET), EUTERPE doctoral researcher Tamara Cvetković, EUTERPE scientific coordinator Petra Bakos, and British-Hungarian crime writer Éva Cserháti for a conversation about what it means to write across borders. They move from personal stories of belonging and displacement to the structural questions: who gets into the literary canon and who gets translated into English. The podcast transcript is available here . For more information about the RECET Festival 2025, visit https://www.recet.at/event-news/events/detail/migration-and-transformation This episode is part of the EUTERPE podcast Library on European Literatures and Genders from a Transnational Perspective. The podcast is powered by the European Union, UKRI, and the Central European University Library. Grant Agreement: 101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project. For more information about the EUTERPE project please refer to the official project webpage https://www.euterpeproject.eu/, or follow us on Instagram @euterpe_project_ or Facebook at EUTERPE Doctoral Network Project. This episode was produced by RECET Institute and edited by Tamara Cvetković. Thank you to Alexander Walker for the music and to Alice Flinta for the voice over. Thank you also to Ninutsa Nadirashvili, Evangeline Scarpulla and Kris Orszaghova for designing the podcast covers. This episode is also available on SoundCloud.

Suzanne Clisby Coventry University Special Project Advisor and Supervisory Expert Advisor Suzanne Clisby (FRSA) is Professor of Education and Social Justice at the University of Lincoln with longstanding experience and expertise in academic research and leadership, teaching and authorship. She has conducted over 15 research projects, totalling circa. £8m and has trained numerous scholars in feminist methodological approaches and qualitative methods. She provides expertise in gender analyses, participatory development, life history narrative methods and creative praxis across a range of academic and NGO contexts, including a University of Iceland/UNESCO international fellowship programme. Professor Suzanne Clisby was the UK PI of the Horizon Europe European MSCA EUTERPE project (2022-24) and continues to work closely with the EUTERPE Consortium as a Special Project Advisor, Supervisory Expert Advisor (Coventry) and Employability Mentor (Granada). Professor Clisby was the Co-Director of the UKRI GCRF Global Gender and Cultures of Equality  (GlobalGRACE) Project (2017-2022), PI and Director of the Horizon 2020 MSCA Gender and Cultures of Equality in Europe (GRACE) Project (2015-2019), and, for over a decade, Co-Editor of the Journal of Gender Studies. Her research focuses on gender, education and development. Publications: Gendering Women: identity and mental wellbeing through the life course  (with Holdsworth, 2016, Policy Press) The State of Girls Rights in the UK   (with Alsop, 2016, New Internationalists Publications) Theorising Cultures of Equality  (with Johnson & Turner, 2020, Routledge) Gender, Sexuality and Identities of the Borderlands: Queering the Margins  (2020, Routledge) Investigating Cultures of Equality (with Golańska and Różalska, 2022, Routledge) Performing Cultures of Equality (with Durán-Almarza and Rodríguez-González, 2022, Routledge).

Team Bologna Rita Monticelli Principal Investigator Rita Monticelli is a full professor of English at the University of Bologna; she teaches gender studies, feminists and cultural studies, and theories and history of culture in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. Her research includes memory and trauma studies, the global novel, utopia and dystopia, travel literature, and memory and trauma studies in contemporary dystopian fiction and visual culture. She also works on issues connected to human rights and intercultural and interreligious dialogues. In these areas, she has published and co-edited volumes and essays. Amongst them are The Politics of the Body in Women’s Literatures (2012) and the recent essay “Transmedia Science Fiction and New Social Imaginaries” in The Edinburgh Companion to the New European Humanities (with other authors). She is a member of international European research networks and PhD programs centred on gender studies and cultures of equality. She is part of the international councils on diversity and social Inclusion and projects on the New Humanities. She directs the Centre for Utopian Studies and coordinates the International Erasmus Mundus GEMMA (women's and gender studies) at the University of Bologna. She is the representative of the University of Bologna for the SSH Deans and the board of the Gender&Diversity group of the GUILD (European Research-Intensive Universities), a member of the governing Board of EASSH (European Alliance for Social Sciences and Humanities). She is currently a member of the City Council of Bologna and a delegate for human rights and interreligious and intercultural dialogue. Francesco Cattani Researcher Francesco Cattani is Adjunct Professor at the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures of the University of Bologna, where he teaches “Literatures of English Speaking Countries”. He also collaborates with the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree GEMMA, Women's and Gender Studies, for which he teaches "The Re-vision of the Body in Women's Literature" and "English Women's Literature". He is member of the Diversity Council of the UNA Europa European University Alliance and of the Working Group on Equity, Inclusion and Diversity of the University of Bologna. His research blends postcolonial and decolonial studies, gender studies, science fiction, dystopia, and the posthuman to tackle repetitive patterns in the construction of the non-human. Another area of interest is black British literature and visual culture. He has published essays on the deconstruction of European identity from a transnational perspective, Bernardine Evaristo, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson, Ingrid Pollard, Hanif Kureishi. Gilberta Golinelli Researcher Gilberta Golinelli is an Associate Professor at the University of Bologna, where she teaches English Literature, Feminist Methodologies and Critical Utopias. Her main research areas include the Shakespearean canon and the Elizabethan Theatre, Women’s and Gender Studies, and Women’s Utopias in the Early Modern Age. She is the referent of the PhD program EDGES (European Doctorate in Women’s and Gender Studies) and vice coordinator of Master Gemma (University of Bologna). Her recent publications include Gender Models, Alternative Communities and Women’s Utopianism. Margaret Cavendish, Aphra Behn and Mary Astell (2018); Il testo shakespeariano dialoga con i nuovi storicismi, il materialismo culturale e gli studi di genere (2012); the coediting of the volume Women’s Voices and Genealogies in Literary Studies in English (2019).

International Literature Festival in Utrecht: Q&A with Authors Alejandra Ortiz and Chérissa Iradukunda In this podcast, Doctorate Candidate María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto converses with life writing authors Alejandra Ortiz and Chérissa Iradukunda. This conversation is the result of a workshop’s Q&A that Auxi Castillo Soto delivered as part of her EUTERPE internship. During their conversation, Ortiz and Iradukunda talk about their writing process, the language selection, the opinion of their close ones, and many other interesting topics related to their life writing narratives. Alejandra Ortiz is the author of the book titled De waarheid zal me bevrijden , where she recounts her migratory journey from Mexico, first, to the United States and later to the Netherlands in 2015. And Chérissa Iradukunda is the author of the book titled Broken Object, a life writing narrative about the migratory journey of a teenage girl to the Netherlands. The episode transcript can be accessed here . This episode is part of the EUTERPE podcast Library on European Literatures and Genders from a Transnational Perspective. The podcast is powered by the European Union, UKRI, and the Central European University Library. Grant Agreement: 101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project. For more information about the EUTERPE project please refer to the official project webpage https://www.euterpeproject.eu/ , or follow us on Instagram @euterpe_project_ or Facebook at EUTERPE Doctoral Network Project . This episode was produced and edited by María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto. Thank you to Alexander Walker for the music and to Alice Flinta for the voice over. Thank you also to Ninutsa Nadirashvili, Evangeline Scarpulla and Kris Orszaghova for designing the podcast covers.

A Conversation with Eugenia Seleznova In this episode, doctoral candidates Tamara Cvetković and Samriddhi Pandey interview Eugenia Seleznova, an author, researcher, and cultural manager from Ukraine. Currently, Eugenia is a PhD Candidate at Central European University, where she conducts a research on queer Ukrainian relationalities during the war. In conversation with Tamara and Samriddhi, Eugenia shares how the contexts of the post-Soviet, then revolutionary, and then, finally, wartime Ukraine have shaped her experience as an author, and directed her own shifts and transitions: between identities, regionalities, languages, genres, occupations — and ways to love and write. The conversation also touches on transnational and translingual experiences of writing through displacement, and on finding one's way as a "peripheral researcher" amidst the Western academia. The podcast transcript is available upon request. If you require a copy of the transcript please email seleznova_eugenia@phd.ceu.edu to request a copy. This episode is part of the EUTERPE podcast Library on European Literatures and Genders from a Transnational Perspective. The podcast is powered by the European Union, UKRI, and the Central European University Library. Grant Agreement: 101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project. For more information about the EUTERPE project please refer to the official project webpage https://www.euterpeproject.eu/ , or follow us on Instagram @euterpe_project_ or Facebook at EUTERPE Doctoral Network Project . This episode was produced and edited by Samriddhi Pandey and Tamara Cvetković . Thank you to Alexander Walker for the music and to Alice Flinta for the voice over. Thank you also to Ninutsa Nadirashvili and Kris Orszaghova for designing the podcast covers.

A Conversation with Author Chérissa Iradukunda In this podcast, doctoral candidates Evangeline Scarpulla and Maria Auxiliadora Castillo Soto, converse with transnational author Chérissa Iradukunda, a first time published author who recounts her migratory experience from Burundi to the Netherlands in her book titled Broken Object. Her book was published in 2023 by Austin Macauley Publishers, and it presents readers with the difficulties experienced by a teenage girl while adapting to her new home and Dutch culture. Throughout their conversation, Iradukunda talks about what being a transnational author means to her. She also discusses the process of publishing her book, and her motivation for choosing English as the language of publication. Lastly, they discuss specific themes related to the plot and characters of her creative novel. We hope that you enjoy listening to this podcast. The episode transcript can be accessed here: https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:EU:527c700e-693d-4ff3-a6e9-16e6cbe2d061. This episode is part of the EUTERPE podcast Library on European Literatures and Genders from a Transnational Perspective. The podcast is powered by the European Union, UKRI, and the Central European University Library. Grant Agreement: 101073012 EUTERPE HORIZON-MSCA-2021-DN-01 Project. For more information about the EUTERPE project please refer to the official project webpage https://www.euterpeproject.eu/, or follow us on Instagram @euterpe_project_ or Facebook at EUTERPE Doctoral Network Project. This episode was produced and edited by Evangeline Scarpulla and María Auxiliadora Castillo Soto. Thank you to Alexander Walker for the music and to Alice Flinta for the voice over. Thank you also to Ninutsa Nadirashvili and Kris Orszaghova for designing the podcast covers.

Adelina Sánchez Espinosa University of Granada Principal Investigator Adelina Sánchez Espinosa is senior Lecturer at the University of Granada and Scientific Coordinator of GEMMA: Erasmus Mundus Master and Consortium in Women's and Gender Studies; PI for the "Reception, modes and gender" Andalusian Research Group and the "Gender Responsible Lecturing Labs: Interfacing cultural and visual cultures Andalusian Research Project of Excellence, UGR PI for H2020 MSCA EUTERPE Project (EUTERPE: European Literatures and Gender in Transnational Perspective") and a Horizon Chanse project: DIGISCREENS Identities and Democratic values on European digital screens: Distribution, reception and representation. She is Series Editor of the Researching with GEMMA collection (Peter Lang) She was the Vice-President of AOIFE (Association of Institutions for Feminist Research and Education in Europe): Director of International Relations for the UGR, Executive Secretary of the UGR Women's Studies Research Institute and Series Editor for the UGR "FEMINAE" Book collection. Publications: Calderón-Sandoval, Orianna, and Adelina Sánchez-Espinosa. 2020. “Feminist Counter-Cinema and Decolonial Countervisuality: Subversions of Audiovisual Archives in Un’ora Sola Ti Vorrei (2002) and Pays Barbare (2013).” Studies in Documentary Film 15 (3): 187–202. Calderon-Sandoval, Orianna, and Adelina Sánchez-Espinosa. 2024. “Queerfeminist Strategies for the Reconstruction of Spanish Memories of the Civil War and Franco’s Dictatorship in El Cuarto de Atrás (1978) and Cartas a María (2015).” Bulletin of Spanish Studies 101 (4): 569–93. Sánchez-Espinosa, Adelina, and Séamus O’Kane. "Interpreting “Translanguages” in Transnational Women’s Literature: Socially Situated Perspectives and Feminist Close-Readings." Social Sciences 14, no. 7 (2025): 414.

Noemi Anna Kovacs Central European University European Cooperation Officer Noemi joined Central European University in 2009. Her professional career started when she graduated from Pázmány Péter Catholic University and completed her MA degree in Humanities and Liberal Arts with two specialisations, one in Romanic Studies/Italian Language, History and Literature and another in English and American Studies/English Language, History and Literature. During university, she worked as a language teacher and freelance translator. Later on, as a fresh graduate, a book publishing house hired her as the in-house editor. Before joining CEU, Noemi had been working on large EU- and state-funded research projects for an independent, interdisciplinary research institute, Collegium Budapest – Institute for Advanced Studies. At CEU, Noemi’s portfolio ranges from individual postdoctoral fellowships to large multi-beneficiary EU-funded research and educational projects. Her responsibilities include pre- and post-award management of such grants and projects, be it legal or financial matters or the development of dissemination, communication, and cooperation strategies.

Coordinator: CEU PU Vienna, Austria Principal Investigator: Jasmina Lukic Funding: Marie Skłodowska–Curie Actions – Doctoral Network (MSCA DN) Duration: 1 October, 2022 - 31 September, 2026 Grant Ref: EP/X02556X/1. The aim of EUTERPE: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective is to offer an innovative approach to rethinking European cultural production in the light of complex social and political negotiations that are shaping European spaces and identities at present. EUTERPE intends to do that by bringing together gender and transnational perspectives within an interdisciplinary approach to literary and cultural studies. The research is organized into 8 work packages within four main areas: 1. Transnational women’s literature and its travels: points of entry and pathways (WP 1, WP2); 2. Translational genres: crossing borders in gender, form, space, and identity (WP 3, WP4); 3. Transnational women intellectuals, multilingualism and decolonising European pedagogies (WP 5, WP6); 4. Transnational literature and cultural production: intermediality as a form of translation (WP7, WP8). The Doctoral Candidates’ academic training will include two supervisors from cooperating universities, a compulsory secondment period, and an industrial internship with an Associated Partner organization to support bespoke employability enhancement. The major impact outputs of the project: 11 PhD theses; a co-produced open-source Dictionary of Transnational Women’s Literature in Europe with key concepts and bio-bibliographic entries on leading representatives of the field; and a Digital Catalogue and Podcast Library , which will make accessible all relevant material collected during the creation of the Dictionary. As a complex, interdisciplinary project, EUTERPE brings together literary and gender studies, as well as transnational studies, translation studies, migration studies and European studies. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under grant agreement nr. 101073012. This project has received funding from the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Research Grant, Grant Ref: EP/X02556X/1. News York Festival of Ideas: Voices of Resistance At the beginning of June, York-based doctoral candidate Alice Flinta organised and chaired an event on contemporary Palestinian Literature, as part of the annual York Festival of Ideas. The event brought together Ghazzawi writer Sondons Sabra and Comma Press editor James Harker for a conversation and live readings from Voices of Resistance. Diaries of Genocide (Comma Press, 2025). James spoke about the context and editorial development of this powerful collection of testimoni Borders: Literary, Cultural and Political Dialogues During May 18th and 21th, doctoral candidates Marina Casado Guerreo (CEU) and Olga Fenoll Martinez (UŁ) attended and presented their PhD projects at the international interdisciplinary conference – “Borders: Literary, Cultural and Political Dialogues” – taking place in the University of Athens, Greece. The conference, organised by the Department of English Language & Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the Hellenic Association for the Study o 13th International Feminist New Materialisms Conference: Enfleshing Literature Beyond Words On June 1st and 2nd, different members of the EUTERPE Project attended and participated at the 13th International Feminist New Materialisms Conference: Enfleshing Literature Beyond Words. The conference aimed to plore the vibrant "interferences" between feminist new materialisms and literature, moving beyond the idea of literature as mere text enclosed in words so as to approach it as a modality of knowledge —an apparatus "yet-to-come" that allows us to revisit our pasts, inh

Tamara Cvetković Tamara Cvetković holds a master’s degree in Gender Studies from Central European University and bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature and Literary Theory from the University of Belgrade. Prior to her engagement as a Junior Visiting Researcher within the EUTERPE Project: European Literatures and Gender from a Transnational Perspective and the enrollment in Ph.D. Program in Comparative Gender Studies at CEU in 2023/2024, she spent several years working as a program manager in an NGO based in Serbia that dealt with migration issues, intercultural education, and interdisciplinary approaches to transcultural phenomena. Over this period, her main areas of interest were gender studies, transnational migration, postcolonialism/decolonial theory, Orientalism/Balkanism, feminist and critical pedagogy, use of literature and art in activism. Research topic My research focuses on the literary production of transnational women-identified contemporary authors from the Balkans whose work thematize migration, identity, linguistic and cultural translation, as well as their complex relationships with literary ‘classics.’ Focusing mainly on the authors from the Western Balkans, I plan to analyze border-crossings and travelling though physical and imagined geographies, fictional worlds, literary traditions and genres, and cultural traditions with an aim to map their trajectories through the lens of feminist interpretation as well as to map cultural translations that are framing their works. In addition, my aim is to explore the ways in which they (re)use literary ‘classics’ in revolutionary ways (Standford Friedman, 2019) to create new works, and how these works continue their transnational circulation. Previous Next

Medea, Medes, Marjane and Me: Reflections on colonialism, war, and migration in Marjane Satrapi’s 'Persepolis' While reading Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, three major questions emerge. First, who can colonize or be colonized? Second, is war anything but a personal matter? And third, is the idea of a return just as much of a myth as the Golden Fleece? by Ninutsa Nadirashvili 23 July 2025 Medea, Medes, Marjane and Me: Reflections on colonialism, war, and migration in Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis Between the years of 2000 and 2003, Marjane Satrapi published a quartet of autobiographical comics about growing up in Iran, experiencing the 1979 revolution and dealing with its aftermath. Once translated into English and combined into a two-volume work, it became Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return . Centuries earlier, in 431 B.C., Euripides – tragedian of classical Athens – produced a trilogy of plays.[1] Medea – the only surviving work – is often summarized simply as the story of a woman who murdered her two children to make her husband suffer.[2] Yet, like all women, Medea had a complex history of her own before, during and after her marriage to Jason, a prominent hero in Greek mythology. In some ways, just like Marjane’s protagonist, Medea presents a fascinating case study of how conquest, war, and migration can affect an individual; how they can erase our comfortable notions of home, belonging and safety. In Euripides’ text, Medea laments: Let it go! What profit in staying alive? No country, no home, no way to turn from evil. I made a mistake when I abandoned my homeland, trusting in the words of a Greek man. Now he will pay me justice, gods willing.[3] My personal interest in Medea is because I was born in Georgia. In the accounts of her myth, Medea lives in Kolkheti[4] – a very real polity, active between the 13th and 1st centuries B.C., that is considered as the first Georgian kingdom.[5] After being put under a love spell by the gods, Medea assists Jason in getting the Golden Fleece, betraying her family and kingdom in the process, and sails away with him, eventually settling in Corinth. There, after ten years of marriage, Jason decides to abandon his wife and marry the local king’s daughter. Though retellings differ, Euripides has Medea murder her two children as revenge against her disloyal husband.[6] After this, she flees Corinth and, according to Herodotus, ends up in the Iranian plateau among the Aryans who, in her honour, eventually change their name to Medes.[7] So, in one version of history, a Georgian princess, tricked, taken and then abandoned, spends the last years of her life on the same land that will later give birth to Marjane Satrapi, who, in turn, gives life to Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return . Persepolis , like Euripides’ play, is the story of one woman. Marjane is only ten when revolutionaries sweep through Iran, collectively devolving into an oppressive regime upheld by religious fanaticism. This eventually leads to a war between Iran and Iraq, forcing Marjane’s parents to send their daughter away. Marjane spends nearly a decade in Austria, lost and aimless, eventually ending up on the street. Unable to go on, she returns to Iran only to become severely depressed, even attempting suicide. Here, she echoes Medea again, writing, “I was a Westerner in Iran. An Iranian in the West. I had no identity.”[8] In other words, “No country, no home, no way to turn from evil.”[9] Migration – especially one that is forced – forever alters the migrant’s position from an “insider” to someone in the in-between. This is so painful that both women are driven to extremes. Understanding her survival from the suicide attempt as a miracle, Marjane obtains a degree in graphic design, marries, divorces, and finally decides to leave for Europe again – understanding that, in her mother’s words, “You are a free woman. The Iran of today is not for you.”[10] While reading Satrapi’s work, three major questions emerged for me. First, who can colonize or be colonized? Second, is war anything but a personal matter? And third, is the idea of a return just as much of a myth as the Golden Fleece? The answers, simply put, are: everyone, no, and yes. Still, I would like to delve deeper into Marjane’s story and explore these questions while keeping the author, myself, and Medea in mind. In 1980, Marjane’s father hoped that after centuries of “tyranny and submission”, the revolution was finally waking Iranians up.[11] Since Persepolis is a graphic novel, this statement is followed with a visual depiction of Iranian history: first, subjugated by their own emperors, then the Arabs, followed by Mongolians and finally, the modern imperialists of the global West. Here, the first set of questions come to mind – Who can colonise, who can be colonised and who benefits from the claim that this must be an unchanging dynamic? For example, while Satrapi’s Iran is presented as a colonised territory, the nation where I was born considers Iran a coloniser. In the 4thand 5th centuries, Persians controlled the Georgian Kingdom of Iberia, only to be replaced by Arabian tribes.[12] Ten centuries later, Persians re-conquered Georgia, ruling over the country until 1800s, only ceding power to the Russian Empire which continues to oppress Georgians and currently occupies approximately 20% of our territory.[13] Persepolis is a novel that understands the possibility within all nations to become the “evil” that Medea has no way to turn from. This is why Satrapi begins to tell the country’s 2,500-year story by pointing out that the people were subjugated by their own emperors – the same ones who demanded expansion to foreign lands. This is also why, when Marjane is in Austria, she comes to the realisation that “In every religion, you find the same extremists.”[14] This is why, to Marjane’s old Iranian schoolmates, “making themselves up and wanting to follow Western ways was an act of resistance.”[15] Satrapi, by allowing for her personal story to be the focal point of the novel, manages to get this point across. Everyone can be an oppressor, and anyone can be oppressed. The only group that benefits from the establishment of rigid rules around colonisation is the one that decides to become a conqueror next as it makes it easy to claim innocence that way: “Us? No, never! We’ve been the victims before; how could we?” Empires obliterate others and themselves, there are no set guidelines for who can be the “bad guy.” After all, Jason is supposed to be a hero; and yet he fails at it spectacularly. Once Persepolis proposes that anyone can turn into a tyrant, the novel shifts its focus to the consequences of tyranny – mainly war. In a chapter titled “The Water Cell”, Marjane is told a story that is eerily like one I have heard from my own mother. The reader finds out that Marjane’s grandfather was the son of Iran’s last emperor, subject to frequent threats, and jailed on several occasions.[16]In one of the illustrations, we see a young girl (Marjane’s mother) opening the door to police officers looking for her dad. This is how my mother’s story starts as well, though she rarely tells it. After she opens the door, her father – my grandfather – is taken away by police. His crime was nothing more than having the same last name as a high-ranking politician who opposed the government. This type of intimidation can only foster political unrest, eventually culminating in a war. Marjane and I were both 10 when war took us by surprise, as it always does.[17] In her novel, Satrapi highlights the direct nature of violence, especially when it reaches proportions of such magnitude. The writer tells us about a classmate who writes a eulogy to her father, the refugees who flood Tehran from the South, the maid whose son is given a golden key and told to die for his country in exchange for paradise.[18]When Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, our nanny came to my mother in panic because her son had just been drafted. I remember vividly that she worried about him leaving before dinner, how they had taken him in a hurry, and she had only found time to put a bar of chocolate in his pocket. Satrapi’s focus on the fates of individual citizens answers the second question – No, war is never anything but personal. So then, once Medea has betrayed her father, started a war in several cities, and killed her own children, can she return to Kolkheti? After all, Persepolis is in ruins, and I have not been truly fluent in Georgian since the age of thirteen. We will never know how much of Euripides’ play is based on facts, but I would argue that the act of returning is entirely mythological. In Austria, Marjane denies her heritage, refuses to watch the news about Iran, and tries desperately to fit in.[19] Instead, she is repeatedly discriminated against, tokenised, isolated, and ultimately ends up on the street with no one to care for her. Soon after, unable to assimilate because much like returning, assimilation is a myth, she flies to Iran. She writes, “After four years living in Vienna, here I am back in Tehran. From the moment I arrived at Mehrabad Airport and caught sight of the first customs agent, I immediately felt the oppressive air of my country.”[20] Welcome home, indeed. In chapters to follow, Marjane compares her city to a cemetery, is labelled a whore for having sexual experiences in Austria, discovers the duality of revolutionary men who preach about freedom while refusing to let their wives speak.[21] If Herodotus is telling the truth, Medea only goes home as a conqueror. Meanwhile, Marjane is barely recognisable to her own parents. As for me, after living in Georgia for a year during my twenties, I know I will spend the rest of my life trying to find the same feeling of “home” that I had at thirteen, only to fail. (Though it was not always good, I once belonged to that place, and it belonged to me). There is no rest for the migrants. And belongings get left behind. Then again, as Satrapi points out on the final page of the novel, freedom has a price.[22] Bibliography Euripides. Euripides’ Medea: A New Translation . Translated by Diane Rayor. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Herodotus. Herodotus . Translated by A. D. Godley. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920. Satrapi, Marjane. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return . London: Vintage, 2008. Rayfield, Donald. Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia . London: Reaktion Books, 2019. [1] Euripides, Euripides’ Medea: A New Translation , trans. Diane Rayor (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013), xiv. [2] Ibid., xiii. [3] Ibid., 37. [4] Or Colchis. [5] Ibid., 69. [6] Ibid., xiii. [7] Herodotus, Herodotus , trans. A. D. Godley (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1920), 7.61. [8] Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood and The Story of a Return (London: Vintage, 2008)., 118. [9] Euripides, Euripides’ Medea: A New Translation , 37. [10] Ibid., 343. [11] Ibid., 11. [12] Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia (London: Reaktion Books, 2019). [13] Ibid. [14] Satrapi, 180. [15] Satrapi, 261. [16] Ibid., 18-25. [17] Ibid., 81. [18] Ibid., 86 – 99. [19] Ibid., 157-246. [20] Ibid., 248. [21] Ibid., 248 -339. [22] Ibid., 343.

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