Seattle-based Chinese American author Tessa Hulls has won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for memoir or autobiography for her graphic memoir “Feeding Ghosts.”
About Hulls and her book: “Feeding Ghosts,” which reportedly took Hulls nearly a decade to complete, chronicles three generations of Chinese women in her family, beginning with her grandmother Sun Yi, a persecuted journalist who fled China’s communist government with her daughter Rose — Hulls’ mother — to Hong Kong. The book details how Sun Yi wrote a bestselling memoir before suffering a mental breakdown, and examines the trauma passed through generations. The Pulitzer committee described it as “an affecting work of literary art and discovery whose illustrations bring to life three generations of Chinese women.”
“Shocked and grateful”: In an Instagram post on Sunday, Hulls said she felt “shocked and grateful” while acknowledging the emotional toll of creating the work. “The nine years I spent living within my family’s story nearly broke me with their isolation,” she noted. Hulls also reflected on her creative journey through a literary reference, writing, “When magic dies, it sometimes dies forever; but new and different magic grows when you view what fell as a nurse log, ready to feed new life.”
Hulls, who also recently won the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize among other accolades, has stepped back from public life temporarily. “If you need me, I’ll be in the mountains; I’ll come back down when I’m ready,” she wrote.
This story is part of The Rebel Yellow Newsletter — a bold weekly newsletter from the creators of NextShark, reclaiming our stories and celebrating Asian American voices.
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