"Pulitzer-Winning Graphic Novel 'Feeding Ghosts' Gets Surprisingly Little Reaction"

The graphic novel Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir (MCD, 2024) by Tessa Hulls has made history by winning the Pulitzer Prize, announced on May 5. This prestigious award, widely regarded as the pinnacle of recognition in journalism, literature, and music in the United States, places Feeding Ghosts in the esteemed company of Art Spiegelman's Maus, which won a Special Award in 1992. Remarkably, Feeding Ghosts secured its victory in the regular category of Memoir or Autobiography, competing against the finest English prose worldwide. What adds to the significance of this achievement is that it marks Hulls' debut in the graphic novel genre.

Despite the monumental nature of this accomplishment, the news has been surprisingly underreported. Since the announcement two weeks ago, only a few mainstream and trade publications, such as the Seattle Times and Publishers Weekly, along with the major comic book news outlet Comics Beat, have covered the story. This is a notable oversight considering the Pulitzer Prize's status as one of the highest honors in the literary world, second only to the Nobel Prize internationally.

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 graphic novel delves into the echoes of Chinese history across these generations, focusing on Hulls' grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who experienced the upheaval of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, Sun Yi authored a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival but later suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Hulls herself grew up witnessing her mother and grandmother grapple with unexamined trauma and mental illness. Her response was to initially escape to the most remote parts of the world. However, she eventually returned to confront her own fears and traumas, a process she describes as a generational haunting that could only be healed through family love. "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. "My book is called Feeding Ghosts, because that was the beginning of this nine-year process of really stepping into something that was my family duty."

Despite the success of Feeding Ghosts, Hulls has indicated that this might be her only graphic novel. "I learned that being a graphic novelist is really too isolating for me," she explained in another interview. Her creative practice thrives on engaging with the world around her, leading her to pursue a new path as an embedded comics journalist. On her website, she expresses her intent to work with field scientists, indigenous groups, and nonprofits in remote environments.

Regardless of her future endeavors, Feeding Ghosts stands as a groundbreaking work that deserves broader recognition and celebration beyond the comics community.