Begoña Fernandez
Madrid, December 13 (EFE). – Author and illustrator Tessa Hulls, winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Biography for her comic “Feeding the Ghosts,” in which she reconstructs the lives of three generations of Chinese women marked by political persecution, is convinced she will not return to China because her visa will not be renewed.
In an interview with EFE, Hulls (California, 1984) says that this decision not to give her a new visa (the current one expires in 2026) “in a way repeats the family tragedy that she tells in the comic”: a multi-generational story of her grandmother Sun Yi, a journalist persecuted by the Chinese communist revolution, her mother Rose and herself, whose life is marked by political persecution and exile.
Hulls says his graphic novel is banned in China, but a Chinese translation has just come out in Taiwan, so he’s “pretty excited” to see how the translation is received and how readers react to it.
The author admits that during the ten years she spent uncovering the family history of her grandmother and mother, she was under the radar of the Chinese government because the book had not yet been published and they did not know what she was doing.
In any case, the artist said, she has no intention of applying for further visas to travel to China because her mother was the bridge that connected her to this country, but “now she has dementia and it is very likely that she will no longer be able to travel. The connection is broken.”
The author, based in the United States, recognizes that currently under the Trump administration, writers, historians and artists find themselves in a position where they are watching the US government declare war on their work and the stories they want to tell.
However, he admits that he still has the freedom to be critical of the government and what is happening, even if he fears that his country will “gradually fall into a dictatorship” and equates Mao’s policies in China in the 1950s or 1960s with those of Trump today.
In his opinion, what Mao did then and what Trump is doing now was “turning education into something bad and then denying science. They are leaders who tell realities that contradict the facts and force agendas based on denial.”
Despite this tense climate, she feels “very American,” says Hulls. She recognizes that many friends are making the decision to leave the United States, but she wants to stay “and make sure the situation improves.”
He admits he is “disappointed and scared” about what is happening in the United States, “but it is still his home.”
Hulls spent ten years preparing this book, a project he defines as putting together a puzzle in which each piece was a buried memory.
This decade of research and personal exploration recognizes that it has influenced him: “Now I am a softer, more emotional person and the most radical change is that I can hug my mother.”
The author believes books like hers help build bridges, but she is concerned about people’s limited ability to focus and seek empathy these days.
Regarding future work plans, Hulls says she considers herself a multidisciplinary artist and builds a relationship with each project, thinking about what format is best suited.
And in the case of Feed the Ghosts, he already knew it was going to be a 400-page comic, but he doesn’t feel like he has other stories that fit the same format now.
Hulls comments that she will continue working on the comic, but not alone, as she felt “extremely isolated in the face of a story she couldn’t change.”
Therefore, their intention is to do something more collaborative. He is currently working on a scientific project with sequoia trees, analyzing their response to climate change, and with marine biologists on the effects of a heat wave that killed many birds.EFE
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