US: Art Spiegelman's 'Maus' becomes Amazon bestseller after ban in Tennessee school

After being banned from classrooms by a school in the US State of Tennessee, graphic novel "Maus" has become an Amazon bestseller. "The Complete Maus", authored by Art Spiegelman, on Friday held the No.1 spot among Amazon's bestsellers in the categories of fiction satire, comics and graphics novels. In the overall spot of all books, CNBC reported. "The Complete Maus" has reached the No. 7 spot in all books. The graphic novel "Maus" which won a Pulitzer in 1992 depicts the story of how the author's parents survived in Nazi's death camps, the mass murder of other jews and his mother's suicide years later. 

On January 10, the McMinn County board announced that they have decided to remove "Maus" as they found a handful of curse words and other aspects of “Maus” that it found upsetting. The ban has led to a rise in the demand for the book on Amazon and some people are even making efforts to make the book more accessible to readers. One of them, Professor Scott Denham at Davidson College in North Carolina, is offering McMinn County students in the eighth grade and high school an online class on “Maus.” As per the CNBC report, he has taught Spiegelman's books many times in his courses on the Holocaust over the years. 

Author 'heartened' by readers response 

The book’s author Spiegelman told CNBC in an email that he was "heartened" by reader responses and the local responses about the book revealed by them. He insisted that the school board could have checked before banning the book. He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin made the Russian edition of Maus illegal in 2015 and the small publisher sold out immediately and he had had to reprint repeatedly. Spiegelman told CNBC that his lecture agent is trying to conduct a Zoom event for the McMinn area where he will take questions about Maus with locals in the coming weeks. 

Tennessee school removes novel from eight-grade curriculum

Ten board members of McMinn County school unanimously agreed to remove the novel from the eighth-grade curriculum, citing its usage of the curse words and illustrations of "naked photographs" of women, The Guardian reported. The school's director of education, Lee Parkison stated that there is some raw, offensive language used in this book. Parkison further added that before the book was banned, they had consulted with the attorney and that they thought the best approach to rectify or handle the content in this book was to "redact it".