Culinary Discourses in Asian-Australian Writing

Know about the book -

Culinary Discourses in Asian-Australian Writing is written by Astrid Schwegler-Castañer and published by BRILL. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 900472494X (ISBN 10) and 9789004724945 (ISBN 13).

Besides nourishing us, food can be used metaphorically to help us understand the complex and abstract concepts through which we negotiate our position in the world: we talk about digesting ideas, ruminating on a problem, or swallowing an insult. Building on this premise, the book offers a detailed analysis of culinary imagery in twenty-first-century works from Asian Australian authors, like Hsu-Ming Teo, Alice Pung, Simone Lazaroo, and Shaun Tan. Food is used to embody the abstractions that underlie racial inequalities and conflicts, questioning the superficiality of Australia’s official multiculturalism and its reproduction of racial and cultural privileges. At the same time, the analysis highlights the power of these fictional narratives to envision alternative worlds in the hope of gaining common ground for human understanding and solidarity.