Savouring the Francophone Asia-Pacific: Métissage and Foodways in Ook Chung’s Kimchi and Jimmy Ly’s Bonbon sœurette et pai coco

This article interrogates the neglected relationships between métissage, corporeality, memory and foodways within Francophone Asia-Pacific literatures written by Asiatic migrant writers of the French language. By focusing specifically on two texts, Ook Chung’s Kimchi (2001) and Jimmy Ly’s Bonbon soeurette et pai coco (1997), this study explores the various constructions of mixed-race, multiethnic diasporic identity through the intake and symbolism of food. Both multiethnic protagonists in these two texts exhibit sentiments of delocalization and otherness. However, through literal and epistemic acts of alimentary consumption that interlink with nostalgia, Chung’s and Ly’s protagonists structure individual and collective memories, while challenging certain intra-ethnic tensions and notions of hybridizing roots, language and cultural production.