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ABSTRACT
The initial premise of this article is that food ‘goes beyond the need for nourishment’ (Chiaro, Citation2008, p. 195). The basic assumption is that food is a system of cultural representation. In line with Charron and Desjardins (Citation2011, p. 1), our starting point is that ‘[l]anguage and food define and shape collective identities […]. Food not only shapes identities, but it can also act as a pivot or bridge language between divergent identities, a form of cultural mediation or translation.’ The first section analyzes how food has been studied in a wide variety of disciplines as a way of transmitting the characteristics of a culture, its identities, and ways of seeing the world. Within the context of food as a semiotic system that communicates, the second section focuses on the novels of Najat El Hachmi, those in which food is seen as a way of translating cultures.
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Notes on contributors
MªCarmen África Vidal Claramonte
África Vidal is Full Professor of Translation at the University of Salamanca, Spain. Her research interests include translation theory, migration studies, post-structuralism, post-colonialism, contemporary art and gender studies. She has published 19 books, 12 edited volumes and over a hundred articles and book chapters on these issues. She is a practising translator specialized in the fields of philosophy, literature, history and contemporary art.