The graphic novel Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir (MCD, 2024) by Tessa Hulls has achieved a remarkable milestone by winning the Pulitzer Prize, announced on May 5. This prestigious accolade underscores the novel's significant impact in the literary world.

Feeding Ghosts marks only the second graphic novel to ever win the Pulitzer Prize, following Art Spiegelman’s Maus in 1992, which received a Special Award. In a groundbreaking move, Feeding Ghosts won in the regular category of Memoir or Autobiography, competing against the finest English prose globally. This achievement is particularly noteworthy as it is Hulls' debut graphic novel.

The Pulitzer Prize, widely regarded as the most prestigious award in journalism, literature, and music in the United States, is second only to the Nobel Prize on the international stage. The recognition of Feeding Ghosts is a monumental accomplishment in the realm of comics, yet surprisingly, it has received minimal 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 this significant event.

Hulls spent nearly a decade crafting this work, which the Pulitzer Prize Board lauded 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.”

Feeding Ghosts delves into the profound effects of Chinese history across three generations. Hulls' grandmother, Sun Yi, a journalist from Shanghai, was caught in the upheaval of the 1949 Communist victory. After escaping to Hong Kong, she authored a best-selling memoir about her persecution and survival, only to suffer a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.

Despite the success of her debut, Hulls has expressed that Feeding Ghosts might be her final graphic novel. Growing up with Sun Yi, she witnessed her mother and grandmother grappling with unexamined trauma and mental illness. Hulls coped by traveling to the most remote parts of the world, but ultimately returned to confront her own fears and traumas, a generational haunting that she believes could only be healed through familial love.

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.”

However, Hulls has indicated that the isolation of being a graphic novelist is not for her. 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 intention to transition into an embedded comics journalist, working with field scientists, indigenous groups, and nonprofits in remote environments.

Regardless of her future endeavors, Feeding Ghosts stands as a testament to the power and artistry of graphic novels, deserving recognition and celebration beyond the comics community and within the broader literary world.