Peter Kuper BIO
Peter Kuper is a 2026 Pulitzer Prize Finalist. His work appears regularly in Charlie Hebdo, The New Yorker, The Nation, and Mad , where he has written and illustrated “Spy vs. Spy” since 1997. He is the co-founder of World War 3 Illustrated, a political comix magazine now in its 47th year of publication. He has produced over two dozen books including Sticks and Stones (winner of The Society of Illustrators gold medal), The System, Diario de Oaxaca, Ruins (winner of the 2016 Eisner Award) and adaptations of many of Franz Kafka's works into comics including The Metamorphosis and Kafkaesque (winner of the 2018 Reuben award and 2022 Lucca award for short stories) and an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.Translations of his work have appeared in Hungary, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy, France, Spain, Slovenia, China, Brazil, Poland, Sweden, Israel, Germany and Mexico.
He was the 2020-21 Jean Strouse Fellow at The New York Public Library’s Cullman Center and received a 2022 Yaddo residency. His work has been exhibit at the New York Public Library and many museums and galleries throughout the world. His graphic novel Insectopolis, on the history of insects, has won the 2025 Entomology Society of America’s Science Communication Award, and the 2026 American Library Association award for best nonfiction graphic novel. He is the winner of the 2024 RFK Journalism Award in cartooning and the 2025 Herblock Finalist Prize.
Peter is a 2026 Safina Center Senior Fellow and teaches cartooning at Harvard University.
Photo by Holly Kuper