Description
Book SynopsisSuitable for sinologists, literary critics, anthropologists, cultural studies scholars, and others curious about the semiotics of food, this book examines the twentieth-century Chinese political experience as it is represented literature through hunger, cooking, eating, and cannibalising. It includes chapters on Xiao Hong, Wang Anyi, and Li Ang.
Trade Review“A very provocative view of the way modern Chinese practice, imagine, and politicize food culture and alimentary discourse. Instead of paying only lip service to materiality, Yue truly grapples with the material aspect of Chinese modernity.”—David Wang, author of
Fictional Realism in Modern China: Mao Dun, Lao She, Shen Congwen“Eating is certainly one of the great cultural metaphors in China, past and present.
The Mouth That Begs is magnificent—sophisticated in writing and original in approach and interpretation. A most brilliant work indeed.”—Leo Ou-fan Lee, Harvard University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
I. The Social Embodiment of Modernity 61
II. Writing Hunger: From Mao to the Dao 145
III. The Return (of) Cannibalism after Tianamen, or Red Monument in a Latrine Pit 222
IV. Sampling of Variety: Gender and Cross-Cultural Perspectives 289
Conclusion 372
Notes 383
Glossary 407
Bibliography 419
Index 435
