Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivor's Tale

David Andrew Loman (Memorial University of Newfoundland)
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Art Spiegelman’s celebrated graphic narrative

Maus: A Survivor’s Tale

tells two intertwined stories: the desperate struggle of his parents, Jews living in Poland in the 1930s and 1940s, to survive the Nazis’ Final Solution; and his own difficult, frequently adversarial relationship with his father in 1980s New York State. A masterpiece of comics art,

Maus

was published serially in the 1980s and early 1990s and collected in two volumes, the first published in 1986 and the second in 1991; lacking a category that might include

Maus

, the Pulitzer board conferred a special Pulitzer on Spiegelman in 1992.

To those readers only superficially acquainted with ambitious or serious comics – a large category that included the vast majority of Maus’s earliest readers – the book provokes and

4080 words

Citation: Loman, David Andrew. "Maus: A Survivor's Tale". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 26 January 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=14570, accessed 23 November 2024.]

14570 Maus: A Survivor's Tale 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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