In my last post I wrote about the use of food for diplomatic purposes in The Mirror and the Light, the final volume in Hilary Mantel’s Thomas Cromwell trilogy. Continue reading “Food for a queen”
Category: 21st century fiction
Food and politics
Throughout this blog I’ve written about the way that food in literature is always about more than just the food. Amongst its many narrative functions, food may reveal character, act as a metaphor for feelings and relationships or reflect key themes and issues in the text. Continue reading “Food and politics”
Racial passing
As well as exposing the continued ill-treatment and oppression of people from black and minority ethnic (BAME) backgrounds, the Black Lives Matter movement also served as a reminder – to me and countless others – of the huge range of black-authored literature which is often overlooked by white readers and critics alike. Various websites and booksellers published lists of must-read BAME authors, and I was certainly glad to be pointed in the direction of a number of great books (both non-fiction and fiction), some of which I’d not even heard of, let alone read. Continue reading “Racial passing”
Food and grief
Winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction in 2020, Maggie O’Farrell’s novel Hamnet imagines the relationship between William Shakespeare and his wife Anne Hathaway, and the death of their son Hamnet. Continue reading “Food and grief”