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ABSTRACT/RÉSUMÉ
This paper discusses the cultural significance of food as a multilayered trope and strategy in postcolonial life writing. Specifically, I read the use of food as a metaphor in culinary memoirs by ethnic Canadian authors Fred Wah (Diamond Grill) and Austin Clarke (Pig Tails'n Breadfruit). As it mediates memory, this metaphor provides an axis for understanding the authors' explorations of their cultural backgrounds and inscription of subjectivity. The culinary language employed in the innovative discourse of these texts makes the notion of food a metonym of the elaboration of culture and identity. The manner in which these writers negotiate food imagery and the process of preparing (and consuming) food as part of their autobiographical exercises invites the reader to read beyond the possibly "exotic" representation of food to more complex versions of positionality, affiliation, and selfhood.
Cette communication traitera de la signification culturelle de la nourriture en tant que métaphore et stratégie de l'écriture autobiographique postcoloniale. J'analyserai l'utilisation de la nourriture en tant que métaphore dans les mémoires culinaires des auteurs ethniques canadiens Fred Wah (Diamond Grill) et Austin Clarke (Pig Tails 'n Breadfruit). La métaphore, en relation avec la mémoire, permet de comprendre le travail d'exploration des auteurs sur leur héritage culturel et leur inscription de la subjectivité. Le langage culinaire utilisé dans le discours novateur de ces textes, transforme la notion de nourriture en métonymie de l'élaboration de la culture et de l'identité. La façon dont ces auteurs négocient l'imagerie de la nourriture et son processus de préparation (et consommation) est une partie de leurs exercices autobiographiques et invite le lecteur à lire au delà de la représentation "exotique" possible de la nourriture, vers des versions plus complexes de position, appartenance et de soi.
INTRODUCTION
Contemporary autobiographical representations of the processes of selfhood deploy increasingly complex discursive forms. Significantly, as James Olney argues, autobiography presents itineraries of subjectivity through an engagement with metaphor, and the self deploys figurative constructs that transform its given past or historic "bios" into "bios" processed by the imagination. Events of the past are reinterpreted in light of the autobiographer's "present" consciousness, and these reciprocally influence each other's inscription and reading in a relationship of significance, rather than of chronology. Therefore, for Olney, the dominant trope of...