Top ten graphic memoirs

Mary Talbot is the author of the graphic novel Dotter of her Father's Eyes, illustrated by her husband, award winning comic artist Bryan Talbot. She is an internationally acclaimed scholar who has published widely on language, gender and power, particularly in relation to media and consumer culture. Dotter is the first work she has undertaken in the graphic novel format.

For the Guardian, the Talbots named their top ten graphic memoirs, including:

Maus by Art Spiegelman

Maus is both the biography of Spiegelman's father, Vladek, and an autobiographical account of Art's troubled relationship with him as he gets the old man to recount his experiences during the second world war in Poland and his harrowing time as a prisoner in Auschwitz. As well as documenting his father's terrifying experiences under the fascist regime, Spiegelman paints a vivid portrait of his holocaust survivor father, an irascible, stingy and, surprisingly, bigoted curmudgeon, sending the clear message "suffering does not ennoble, it merely causes suffering". Maus is a chilling and thought-provoking read and was rightly a bestseller, remaining the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer prize.

Read about the other memoirs on the list.

Maus also appears on Lev Grossman's top ten list of graphic novels, Danny Fingeroth's top 10 list of graphic novels, Meg Rosoff's top 10 list of adult books for teenagers, and Malorie Blackman's top ten list of graphic novels for teenagers.

--Marshal Zeringue