Maus (graphic novel) - Definition and Overview

Cover

Maus: A Survivor's Tale is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman which recounts his father's struggle to survive the Holocaust as a Polish Jew, while also following the author's troubled relationship with his father, and the way the effects of war reverberate through generations of a family. In 1992 it won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award, as the Pulitzer committee could not decide whether to categorize it as fiction or biography.

The author/artist portrays different groups of people anthropomorphically as different species of animals: Jews are portrayed as mice (German: Maus), Germans as cats, French as frogs, Poles as pigs, Americans as dogs, and so on. This was both a familiar device from children's cartoons and an ironic nod to Nazi propaganda images that depicted Jews as rats and Poles as pigs etc. Publication in Poland was delayed [1] (http://www.forum-znak.org.pl/index-en.php?t=przeglad&id=1020) because of this anthropomorphic device, though the story is realistically presented.

Most of the book was serialized in the Spiegelman-edited RAW magazine. It was then published in two parts, (volume 1, "My Father Bleeds History"; volume 2, "And Here My Troubles Began") before eventually being integrated into a single volume.

Editions

• ISBN 0394747232

External link

• Reconstructivist Art (http://ceh.kitoba.com/hook/reconstructive.html): Maus