Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman

Spiegelman, Art. Maus A Survivor’s Tale I My Father Bleeds History. New York: Pantheon, 1973.

A graphic novel story about the holocaust, told by mice!

AWARDS

1992 Pulitzer Prize – Special Award and Citations – Letters
1992 National Book Critics Circle Award Nomination
1990 Max & Moritz Prizes – Special Prize (Maus)

REVIEW

Art’s father, Vladek, survived a concentration camp with compassion and bravery, but now he’s an older and more difficult man. Art is a cartoonist who wants to draw about his father’s life. And they are both mice. This is the heartbreaking first book in the story of how Art got closer to his father, how Art struggles in his own life, and how Art’s parents survived the holocaust. The allegory–mice are Jews, cats are Germans, and so on–is not so simple and is not to be underestimated. The departure from reality is what makes it so real.

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