"Pulitzer-Winning Graphic Novel 'Feeding Ghosts' Surprisingly Underreacts"

The graphic novel Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls, published by MCD in 2024, has been honored with the Pulitzer Prize, an announcement made on May 5. This prestigious award marks a significant achievement in the realm of literature, as Feeding Ghosts becomes only the second graphic novel ever to win a Pulitzer, following Art Spiegelman's Maus in 1992. Unlike Maus, which received a Special Award, Feeding Ghosts triumphed in the regular category of Memoir or Autobiography, competing against top-tier English prose. Remarkably, this accolade comes with Feeding Ghosts being Hulls' debut graphic novel.

The Pulitzer Prize, widely regarded as the most prestigious award in American journalism, literature, and music, stands just behind the Nobel Prize in international acclaim. Despite the monumental nature of this win, the news has been surprisingly underreported. Since the award was announced two weeks ago, only a few mainstream and trade publications like the Seattle Times and Publishers Weekly, along with one major comic book news outlet, Comics Beat, have covered the story.

The Pulitzer Prize Board praised Feeding Ghosts as "An affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women – the author, her mother and grandmother, and the experience of trauma handed down with family histories." The narrative spans the impact of Chinese history across these three generations, focusing on Hulls' grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who fled to Hong Kong amidst the 1949 Communist victory. Sun Yi's memoir of her persecution and survival became a bestseller, though she later suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Hulls' journey in creating Feeding Ghosts spanned nearly a decade, driven by a sense of familial duty. "I didn’t feel like I had a choice. My family ghosts literally told me I had to do this," Hulls shared in an interview last month, explaining the book's title and her personal motivation. Despite the acclaim, Hulls has indicated that Feeding Ghosts might be her only graphic novel. "I learned that being a graphic novelist is really too isolating for me," she said in another interview, adding that her creative practice thrives on engaging with the world around her. On her website, Hulls expresses her intent to transition into an embedded comics journalist, working alongside field scientists, indigenous groups, and nonprofits in remote environments.

As we celebrate this groundbreaking work, it's crucial to acknowledge the broader significance of Feeding Ghosts. This Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel not only deserves recognition within the comic and graphic novel community but also merits wider appreciation across the literary world.