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| Tessa Hulls chronicled her family's mental health journey and immigration journey to the US. |
The story of an immigrant family spanning three generations and the journey from China to the US earned a Pulitzer Prize for the author, Chinese American author Tessa Hulls.
In her acclaimed graphic memoir debut, Feeding Ghosts, Hulls traces the reverberations of Chinese history across three generations of women in her family.
“Sometimes I wonder if my parents simply reached the Pacific Ocean and, finding a barrier not easily crossed, stopped,” she writes in her graphic memoir, Feeding Ghosts.
The Pulitzer Prize committee called Hulls' work “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.”
Tessa’s grandmother, Sun Yi, was a Shanghai journalist swept up by the turmoil of the 1949 Communist victory. After fleeing to Hong Kong, she wrote a bestselling memoir about her persecution and survival—then promptly had a mental breakdown from which she never recovered.
Growing up with Sun Yi, Tessa watches both her mother and grandmother struggle beneath the weight of unexamined trauma and mental illness, and bolts to the most remote corners of the globe. But once she turns thirty, roaming begins to feel less like freedom and more like running away.
It took Huls ten years to write and draw her memoir
“I didn’t feel like I had a choice,” she told Alaska NPR. “My family ghosts literally told me I had to do this.”
Growing up with Sun Yi, Tessa watches both her mother and grandmother struggle beneath the weight of unexamined trauma and mental illness, and bolts to the most remote corners of the globe. But once she turns thirty, roaming begins to feel less like freedom and more like running away.
It took Huls ten years to write and draw her memoir
“I didn’t feel like I had a choice,” she told Alaska NPR. “My family ghosts literally told me I had to do this.”
She lives in Juneu, Alaska where she works at the state capitol.
Feeding Ghosts is Tessa’s homecoming, a vivid, heartbreaking journey into history that exposes the fear and trauma that haunt generations, and the love that holds them together.
In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Feeding Ghosts has received many accolades since its publication, including both the Libby Award for Best Graphic Novel and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, as well as being named a “Best Book of the Year” by Time magazine, NPR, Publishers Weekly and others.
Hull joins another Asian American in winning this year's honor. Susie Ibarra, a Filipino American, also won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her composition Sky Islands, drew inspiration from the Philippines rain forest and mountains.
In addition to winning the Pulitzer Prize, Feeding Ghosts has received many accolades since its publication, including both the Libby Award for Best Graphic Novel and the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize, as well as being named a “Best Book of the Year” by Time magazine, NPR, Publishers Weekly and others.
Hull joins another Asian American in winning this year's honor. Susie Ibarra, a Filipino American, also won the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Her composition Sky Islands, drew inspiration from the Philippines rain forest and mountains.
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