After being banned by a school board in Tennessee, the Holocaust graphic novel Maus ranks at the top of sales on Amazon. The cartoonist Art Spiegelman recounts the moving memories of his father, a survivor of the Holocaust.
Last Thursday, International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the McMinn County School Board said it was banning the graphic novel “due to its unnecessary use of profanity and nudity, and its depiction of violence and suicide”. A decision voted unanimously on January 10. The council assured in the passage not to seek to diminish the value of the work or the importance of teaching these historical events to the pupils.
What is disturbing, according to the minutes of the meeting? Eight vulgar words and an image of a naked woman, in a book where the Jews are represented by mice and the Nazis by cats.
The complete edition and the first volume of Maus occupy this Monday the second and third places of the best-selling books on Amazon. Google searches for the graphic novel’s title also hit record highs in the United States. “Modern day Nazis are trying to censor this book. So I had to do my civic duty and buy a copy,” wrote one buyer, Collin, in the Amazon reviews, illustrating that this sudden surge in popularity is directly linked to the McMinn board’s decision.
“Your local school board doesn’t want you to read this book,” another user, Suze, wrote in a direct message to students in McMinn County. I do not know why. It’s a graphic novel that explains one of the most terrible events in history. This event happened less than 100 years ago. It is important to learn from past mistakes so as not to repeat them. I really enjoyed reading this book in high school, and I think you will too. »
The movement seems to have affected Canada, although to a lesser extent. Maus is today the 19th best-selling book according to the ranking of the Canadian site of Amazon.
A flurry of reactions
In the last days, the banishment of Maus, the first comic book to win a Pulitzer Prize, in 1992, sparked a wave of misunderstanding and support on social networks, speaking under the hashtag #ReadBannedBooks.
On Twitter, documentalist Julie Goldberg shared the rearrangement of the shelves of her school library, highlighting copies of Maus.
A few miles from McMinn County, Nirvana Comics Knoxville bookstore has set up a Go Fund Me crowdfunding page to distribute copies of the book to area students. Owner Richard Davis considers “Art Spiegelman’s masterpiece to be one of the most important, impactful and influential graphic novels of all time” and thinks “it should be read by all”.
Created just two days ago, the prize pool today stands at over $80,000.