MAUS I: MY FATHER BLEEDS HISTORY by Art Spiegelman (graphic novel / comic book, 1993, 159 pages)

MAUS I: MY FATHER BLEEDS HISTORY is, I think, the only comic book ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer committee created a special category for this book, because, though the book is a graphic novel, in truth it is virtually impossible to categorize. Jules Feiffer says that Maus is “at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book”.

And the book is not only the history of a survivor of the Holocaust, but also a candid examination of the relationship between the author and his father.

MAUS I tells the true story of the author’s father’s (Vladek Spiegelman’s) time in Nazi-occupied Poland and culminates in Vladek’s arrival at Auschwitz; and the book uses the framing device of the father’s telling his grown son the story decades after the events happened.

All characters in this book are represented as anthropomorphic animals: For example, Jews are represented by mice, Germans by cats, and Poles by pigs.

Because this is a graphic novel, quotes alone do not do justice to the book, but I will include one anyway. Please note that Vladek Spiegelman speaks English as a second language, and fortunately the author does not correct his father’s incorrect grammar. This quote is the words of Vladek Spiegelman telling the story to his adult son:

Most they took were kids—some only 2 or 3 years [old]. Some kids were screaming and screaming. They couldn't stop. So the Germans swinged them by the legs against a wall…and they never anymore screamed.

I am not an avid reader of graphic novels, but I unequivocally place Maus I: My father bleeds history into the must-read category in terms of Holocaust literature.