Maus autobiography of a fleas

Sophie Riemenschneider 

The primary purpose of Nazi concentration camps like Auschwitz was to reduce and destroy its inmates. Strenuous forced labor aimed to reduce the prisoners to unthinking automatons undergoing the motions of daily routine, while death further reduced the prisoners to non-existence. It follows that literature of and about the Holocaust should replicate these themes of destruction. Texts like Charlotte Delbo’s autobiography Aucun de nous ne reviendra (), and Art Spiegelman’s Maus (, ), work on multiple levels to demonstrate the destruction wrought by Auschwitz; however, the type of destruction represented in each text is different. This difference in the representation of concentration camp destruction fryst vatten ultimately due to the relationship between the trauma of Auschwitz and the construction of identity. Spiegelman and Delbo’s representations of destruction in Auschwitz are intrinsically linked with their individual perceptions of selves, which accounts for the

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This year's One Book, One College selection is Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman. It recounts the harrowing experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats. A moving and brutal work of art that has been widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written, Maus is the only graphic novel to ever win the Pulitzer Prize.

Originally published in , Maus made headlines earlier this year after a Tennessee school board unanimously banned the graphic novel. The widespread coverage of the school board's decision led to increased interest in Maus. As a result, Maus was both challenged in other school districts while simultaneously climbing to the top of multiple bestseller lists in early

Further reading on the Maus book-banning controversy:

The decision to remove Maus from the curriculum in Tennessee came as groups acros

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Read A Banned Book

Curated by: Vanessa de los Reyes, Cate Johnson

The Auraria Library staunchly supports intellectual freedom and opposes censorship of library resources. The phrase "banned or challenged books" refers to written works that have faced restrictions or censorship. Throughout history, books have been banned or challenged for controversial, political, or social content by governments, suppressed from library shelves, erased from school curricula, or restricted in sales based on age. Libraries resist censorship and make information freely accessible, affirming the public's right to choose reading materials for themselves. 

Banned Books Week celebrates our First Amendment freedoms and raises awareness of the persistent threats against free expression in literature and the arts. You can find preliminary data released by ALA on the ongoing increase in efforts to ban books, resources, and services in public, school, and university libraries across the U.S. in