Maus won the first Pulitzer Prize for a graphic work in 1992.
Created by Art Spiegelman, Maus presents the experiences of Spiegelman’s father, Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived the Holocaust. The narrative moves between the father’s wartime memories and the son’s efforts to record those memories decades later.
The book uses different animals as visual representations of ethnic and national groups: Jews appear as mice, Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs. These devices are part of the book’s deliberately constructed storytelling rather than literal descriptions of people.
Maus was published in two volumes, with the complete edition titled Maus: A Survivor’s Tale. The Pulitzer jury awarded it a special citation, making it a major milestone for comics as serious literary and historical nonfiction.