Art Spiegelman’s Maus stands at the height of the comics art form. It’s the sort of work that makes people who don’t read comics swear that a work this moving can’t really be “just a comic book.” Perhaps it’s not so surprising then that the two-volume work was the first comic to win the Pulitzer Prize in Literature.
Maus is the tale of Art’s father and how he survived the Holocaust during World War II. It’s also a story of Art as a grown man, struggling to come to terms with his aging father. Spiegelman uses the device of portraying his characters as cartoon animals: the Nazis as cats, the Jews as mice. This provides an apt parallel to a saga in which millions of innocents were systematically dehumanized and sent to be slaughtered at places like Buchenwald and Auschwitz. Ironically, it probably also gives the reader a stronger emotional bond to the characters involved than if they were portrayed as humans.
Hardcover; Collects Volume 1 & 2
Uitgeverij: Pantheon
Schrijver: Art Spiegelman
Tekenaar: Art Spiegelman
ISBN: 9780679406419