Woman, Eating

A Best Book of the Year in HARPER’S BAZAAR, BBC, THE NEW YORKER, GLAMOUR, GAL-DEM and HUFFPOST

‘Witty and thought-provoking’ Stylist

‘Blistering’ Glamour

‘Unusual, original and strikingly contemporary’ Guardian

‘Absolutely brilliant’ Ruth Ozeki

‘A gripping contemporary fable about embracing difference’ The Times

‘A wholly 21st century take on bloodsucking’ Observer

Lydia is hungry. She’s always wanted to try sashimi and ramen, onigiri and udon – the food her Japanese father liked to eat – but the only thing she can digest is blood. Yet Lydia can’t bring herself to prey on humans, and sourcing fresh pigs’ blood in London – where she is living away from her Malaysian-British mother for the first time and trying to build a career as an artist – is much more difficult than she’d anticipated.

If Lydia is to find a way to exist in the world, she must reconcile the conflicts within her – between her demon and human sides, her mixed ethnic heritage and her relationship with food, and, in turn, humans. Before any of this, however, she must eat.

‘It’s Kohda’s exploration of Lydia’s inner world, the pain and longing she feels as an outsider, that makes Woman, Eating such a delicious novel’ New York Times Book Review

‘A profound meditation on alienation and appetite, and what it means to be a young woman who experiences life at an acute level of intensity and awareness’ LISA HARDING

‘What Stoker did for the vampire at the end of the nineteenth century, Claire Kohda does for for it in our own era’ TLS

Author Biography

Claire Kohda is a writer and musician. She reviews books for publications including the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement, specialising in books from and about East Asia. As a violinist, she has played with musicians and ensembles including Jessie Ware, RY X, Pete Tong, the London Contemporary Orchestra and The English Chamber Orchestra, and on various film soundtracks.