"Feeding Ghosts Wins Pulitzer, Yet Receives Minimal Response"

The graphic novel Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls, published by MCD in 2024, has achieved a remarkable feat by winning the Pulitzer Prize on May 5. This accolade marks it as the second graphic novel to secure this prestigious award, following Art Spiegelman’s Maus in 1992, which received a Special Award. Notably, Feeding Ghosts won in the regular category of Memoir or Autobiography, a testament to its literary merit as it competed against top English prose worldwide. Impressively, this is Hulls' debut in the graphic novel format.

The Pulitzer Prize, widely regarded as the most prestigious award in journalism, literature, and music in the United States, ranks just below the Nobel Prize on the international stage. The achievement of Feeding Ghosts is monumental, yet the coverage has been surprisingly sparse. Since the announcement two weeks ago, only a few outlets, including Seattle Times, Publishers Weekly, and one major comic book news site, Comics Beat, have reported on this significant event in the comics world.

The Pulitzer Prize Board described 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." Hulls' narrative spans across three generations, delving into the tumultuous life of her grandmother, Sun Yi, a Shanghai journalist who fled to Hong Kong amidst the 1949 Communist victory. Sun Yi authored a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival, but later suffered a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Hulls' personal journey is deeply intertwined with her family's history. Growing up with Sun Yi, she witnessed her mother and grandmother grappling with unexamined trauma and mental illness. Hulls initially coped by traveling to the most remote parts of the world, but eventually returned to confront her own fears and the generational trauma haunting her family. In an interview last month, Hulls shared, “I didn’t feel like I had a choice. My family ghosts literally told me I had to do this. 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 last graphic novel. In another interview, she explained, “I learned that being a graphic novelist is really too isolating for me. My creative practice relies on being out in the world and responding to what I find there.” On her website, she expresses her intent to transition into becoming an embedded comics journalist, working with field scientists, indigenous groups, and nonprofits in remote environments.

As Tessa Hulls embarks on this new path, her groundbreaking work, Feeding Ghosts, merits recognition and celebration beyond the comics community, acknowledging its profound impact on literature and art.