Maus author wins top BD honour

THE author of Maus, an award-winning story of the Holocaust, has been given the Grand Prix at the Angoulême international comics festival.

Art Spiegelman thanked the jury, which was led by last year's winner Baru, for the "amazing honour" via a telephone interview.

Maus, first published in 1986, is an animal story in which a father tells his son about the Holocaust and is the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer prize.

According to 20 Minutes, one jury member said: "The name Spiegelman has been regularly raised for nearly 20 years."

Spiegelman is only the third American to receive the prize in the festival's 38 years (the others being Will Eisner and Robert Crumb).

The winner of this year's best work is Manuele Fiore for Cinq mille kilomètres par seconde.

Read our interview with festival artistic director Benoît Mouchart here.