Tuesday 2 June 2009

Maus - Art Spiegelman

This is my second read for the non-fiction five challenge. Unusually, it's a graphic novel which tells the (true) story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe.

Art Spiegelman, who won the Pulitzer prize for this work, is their son and this work is the result of conversations with his father.

It's hard to describe this book so from the blurb: "By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival - and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance."

I’ve really struggled to write this review and, after putting it off for several weeks, I think that the solution is not to really write one at all.

If you are at all interested in the prospect of reading a non-fiction book about the Holocaust where the Jews have been drawn as mice and the Nazis as cats then you should do so. This is an absolutely superb work and I would not hesitate to recommend it.

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