Eating and cooking beyond the borders in Elif Shafak’s The Saint of Incipient Insanities

Abstract

In her novel The Saint of Incipient Insanities (2004), Elif Shafak explores the theme of alienation by portraying a group of individuals who live in the U.S. and struggle to adapt to the American lifestyle. This article focuses on Alegre, a Mexican-American girl with bulimia. Surrounded by her Chicana aunts and foreign friends, Alegre is forced to adopt American culture, yet she is also asked not to sever her ties with her Mexican roots. I argue that Alegre's relationship with food mirrors her connection to the American and Mexican cultures: by gorging and disgorging herself with food, she challenges the frontiers that separate cultural identities and the borders that divide the inside and the outside of the self. Alegre considers the kitchen her native soil as it provides her with the space to challenge the boundaries of her own body and identity. The food she cooks there brings different identities together over one meal, where they realise they have much more in common than they expected. Thus, she creates an environment for others to find a chance to question the boundaries that restrict their identities.