Culinary Narrative: Therapeutic Artistry of Cooking in Yoshimoto’s Kitchen

Food in Literature

The advent of food studies has unlocked new avenues for literary exploration to examine how the use of food metaphors and imageries represent intricate ideas and concepts in literature. Food writing has transcended nutritional considerations by accentuating on how writers have started using it to perform literary artistry. Banana Yoshimoto, a contemporary Japanese writer weaves the intricacies of quotidian culinary practices in her novella Kitchen through her protagonist, Mikage Sakuri who navigates grief and loss and finds solace in the act of cooking. Kitchen, the very title of the novella, goes beyond being a mere physical space to becoming a canvas that unravels the character’s loss, coping strategies and their cultural narratives. Yoshimoto’s work Kitchen is generally read in the light of contemporary Japanese literature focusing on identity, love, feminism and loss. This paper attempts to investigate the therapeutic potential embedded in the act of cooking through the novella’s protagonist and examines how far the kitchen could be read as a female space where Sakuri exercises her autonomy. The study will be based on a hermeneutic research paradigm and adheres to a qualitative mode of enquiry. Yoshimoto savours her reader’s literary palates through intricately crafting her work with evocative language and culinary symbolism. The author provides a narrative feast by exploring the effects of food and cooking on Sakuri’s psyche.

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