Blog #5

 After reading the novel Crescent written by Diana Abu-Jaber and the interview with Andrea Shalal-Esa, it is obvious that food has a key role in this novel. In the interview with Andrea Shalal-Esa and Diana Abu-Jaber, she says “food is such a great human connector, it’s so intimate". Throughout the novel Sirine uses food and the scents of food, and foods colors to describe people such as Han. When Sirine and Han get intimate, she describes Han as “...amber and caramel” “he tastes of almond, of sweetness.,” these are few of the many way Abu-Jaber use food as a tool for expression throughout the novel.  

 

Diana Abu-Jaber's love for her culture's food is prevalent in the novel through many characters. Han, dealing with being in exile, expresses how he misses his home and his mother’s cooking. Sirine works at a café and uses food to express herself. Food is use as a human “connector” throughout Crescent. Food and exile are connected as well in the novel. As mentioned before, Han is in exile. He resides in America as a college professor at a well-known college in College in California (UCLA). He battles with missing his homeland and accepting the life he has made for himself in California, he constantly drowns himself in this conflicting battle between missing what he had and appreciating what he has gained. He attempts to express how he misses home and his mother cooking through a poem. In the interview with Andrea Shalal-Esa she talks about how those in exile or those that are not literally in exile but feel exiled from their communities come together “in a modern regrouping” and form “a new kind of tribal gathering". This new form of gathering is contorting and makes them feel at home and closer to their culture for some.(300 words)