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 remarkable achievement marks it as only the second graphic novel to ever receive this prestigious award, following Art Spiegelman's Maus in 1992. Unlike Maus, which won a Special Award, Feeding Ghosts secured a victory in the regular category of Memoir or Autobiography, showcasing its prowess against top-tier English prose globally. Remarkably, this is Hulls' debut graphic novel.

The Pulitzer Prize, widely considered the pinnacle of recognition in journalism, literature, and music in the United States, and second only to the Nobel Prize internationally, underscores the significance of Hulls' accomplishment. Despite this, the news of Feeding Ghosts winning the Pulitzer has seen surprisingly limited coverage. Since the announcement two weeks ago, only a few mainstream and trade publications, such as the Seattle Times and Publishers Weekly, along with one major comic book news outlet, Comics Beat, have reported on it.

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.” The novel spans the lives of three generations, reflecting the impact of Chinese history. Hulls’ grandmother, Sun Yi, was a Shanghai journalist caught in the upheaval of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, she penned a best-selling memoir about her persecution and survival, only to later suffer from a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Hulls herself witnessed the struggles of her mother and grandmother under the burden of unaddressed trauma and mental illness. This inspired her to leave home for remote parts of the world, only to return later to confront her own fears and traumas. “I didn’t feel like I had a choice. My family ghosts literally told me I had to do this,” Hulls explained in a recent interview. “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 shared, “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 alongside field scientists, indigenous groups, and nonprofits in remote environments.

Whatever path Tessa Hulls chooses next, Feeding Ghosts stands as a testament to the power and significance of graphic novels as a form of art and storytelling, deserving recognition beyond the realm of comics.