Traces of Hunger in Colum McCann's Dancer

Authors

  • Alvany Guanaes Universidade de São Paulo

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2595-8127.v26i1p15-24

Keywords:

Colum McCann, Dancer, Hunger, Foodways, Nureyev

Abstract

Irish Writer Colum McCann introduces Rudi, the protagonist in Dancer – a fictionalized account inspired by ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev’s biography. Impersonating what McCann coined as the “century’s greatest exile” (Cusatis, 2011, p. 125), Rudi invites us to revisit Nureyev’s saga, starting from Rudi’s childhood during World War II in Russia to his stardom after he defected to the West. McCann organizes Rudi’s life in a pendular parallelism between the scarcity and the excesses lived by the protagonist in economic, emotional, social, and cultural contexts and between the East and the West. Besides the theme of exile, hunger is another aspect of Dancer that is related to the Irish experience. Considering these transnational themes, the present work approaches foodways and hunger in this novel as a “system of communication” (Roland Barthes, 1997) to analyse the sensuous, life-hungry protagonist in the West, including the indulgent lifestyle that accompanied it. Various gastronomic items, events, and behaviours will be approached connotatively to contemplate symbolic eating and converse with physical and metaphorical hunger. Throughout this work, the psychological and bodily instances of the character will dialogue with the political panorama that paved the way for his choices.

Author Biography

  • Alvany Guanaes, Universidade de São Paulo

    Alvany Guanaes holds a PhD and a Master's in English Language Literatures from the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In 2019, she completed a postdoctoral internship at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa under the supervision of Professor Iolanda Freitas Ramos. Her research focused on studies of food and empathy to analyze the characters of Irish author Colum McCann. She is currently an independent researcher.

References

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Published

05-08-2024

How to Cite

Guanaes, A. (2024). Traces of Hunger in Colum McCann’s Dancer. ABEI Journal, 26(1), 15-24. https://doi.org/10.11606/issn.2595-8127.v26i1p15-24