Eating and Identity in Postcolonial Fiction: Consuming Passions, Unpalatable Truths

Description

This book focuses on the fiction of four postcolonial authors: V.S. Naipaul, Anita Desai, Timothy Mo and Salman Rushdie. It argues that meals in their novels act as sites where the relationships between the individual subject and the social identities of race, class and gender are enacted. Drawing upon a variety of academic fields and disciplines — including postcolonial theory, historical research, food studies and recent attempts to rethink the concept of world literature — it dedicates a chapter to each author, tracing the literary, cultural and historical contexts in which their texts are located and exploring the ways in which food and the act of eating acquire meanings and how those meanings might clash, collide and be disputed. Not only does this book offer suggestive new readings of the work of its four key authors, but it challenges the reader to consider the significance of food in postcolonial fiction more generally. Front Matter ....Pages i-vii Introduction: Ways of Reading a Meal (Paul Vlitos)....Pages 1-38 ‘Our Little Bastard World’: Food, History, and Identity in the Novels of V.S. Naipaul (Paul Vlitos)....Pages 39-103 ‘It Was Actually Wonderful to See What Fertile Ground the Dining Table Was for Discussion and Debate’: Food, Gender, and Culture in the Novels of Anita Desai (Paul Vlitos)....Pages 105-150 Stereotypes, Family Values, and Chop Suey: Food, Authority, and Authenticity in the Novels of Timothy Mo (Paul Vlitos)....Pages 151-206 The Chutnification of History and the Limits of Gastronomic Pluralism: Food, Identity, and the Commodification of Culture in the Novels of Salman Rushdie (Paul Vlitos)....Pages 207-262 Conclusion (Paul Vlitos)....Pages 263-276 Back Matter ....Pages 277-330