Eating identities

By Wenying Xu

Subjects: Intellectual life, Social aspects of Food habits, Food habits in literature, Gastronomy in literature, Dinners and dining in literature, Asian Americans in literature, Asian Americans -- Intellectual life, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, American literature -- Asian American authors -- History and criticism, Food habits, Asian Americans, History and criticism, American literature, American literature, asian american authors, history and criticism, Cooking in literature, Social aspects, Asian American authors, Food habits -- Social aspects, History, Asian americans in literature, Cookery in literature

Description: 'Eating Identities' is the first book to link food to a wide range of Asian American concerns such as race and sexuality. Xu provides lucid and informed interpretations of seven Asian American writers (John Okada, Joy Kogawa, Frank Chin, Li-Young Lee, David Wong Louie, Mei Ng, and Monique Truong), revealing how cooking, eating, and food fashion Asian American identities in terms of race/ethnicity, gender, class, diaspora, and sexuality. Most literary critics perceive alimentary references as narrative strategies or part of the background; Xu takes food as the central site of cultural and political struggles waged in the seemingly private domain of desire in the lives of Asian Americans. For students of literature, this tantalizing work offers an illuminating lesson on how to read the multivalent meanings of food and eating in literary texts.