Be My Guest Reflections on Food, Community and the Meaning of Generosity
- 24 Oct 2019
- 9781786898500
- £8.79
- 128 pp
- 24 Oct 2019
- 9781786898517
- £20.99
- 3 hrs 51 min
In a few words
A meditation on the meaning and limits of hospitality today, from the shortlisted author of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
In a few words
A meditation on the meaning and limits of hospitality today, from the shortlisted author of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
An intimate, delicious and thought-provoking story, told with warmth, humour and generosity
Nigel Slater
A powerful meditation on hospitality . . . Packed with such brilliance
An intimate, delicious and thought-provoking story, told with warmth, humour and generosity
Nigel Slater
A powerful meditation on hospitality . . . Packed with such brilliance
More about
the book
‘A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily – and so will you’ Meera Sodha, author of Fresh India
The dinner table, among friends, is where the best conversations take place – talk about the world, religion, politics, culture, love and cooking. In the same way, Be My Guest is a conversation about all these things, mediated through the sharing of food. We live in a world where some have too much and others not enough, where migrants and refugees are both welcomed and vilified, and where most of us spend less and less time cooking and eating together. Priya Basil explores the meaning and limits of hospitality today, and in doing so she invites us to consider that how much we have in common may depend on what we are willing to share.
More about
the book
‘A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily – and so will you’ Meera Sodha, author of Fresh India
The dinner table, among friends, is where the best conversations take place – talk about the world, religion, politics, culture, love and cooking. In the same way, Be My Guest is a conversation about all these things, mediated through the sharing of food. We live in a world where some have too much and others not enough, where migrants and refugees are both welcomed and vilified, and where most of us spend less and less time cooking and eating together. Priya Basil explores the meaning and limits of hospitality today, and in doing so she invites us to consider that how much we have in common may depend on what we are willing to share.
[Basil's] notion of “unconditional hospitality” could save the world . . . Her views are radical and persuasive, rooted in the knotty, sensual, frequently funny complexity of her peripatetic life . . . compellingly beautiful
The subject of food and its many-threaded associations – of generosity and privation, sharing and hoarding, diversity and denial, pleasure and fear – is the starting point for this absorbing meditation on the interface of self with other in contemporary Europe. Priya Basil writes with honesty, clarity and wit about what it means to be hospitable in a culture of selfishness, and the problems and possibilities of commonality
Rachel Cusk
A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you
Meera Sodha
Be My Guest is a great essay on food and hospitality, on the act of sharing meals together, of family and of migration. It uses food and feeding guests and ideas of hospitality to ask bigger, wider questions about the precariousness of immigration and the inhospitable times we find ourselves in. Beautifully, deliciously written
Nikesh Shukla
[Basil's] notion of “unconditional hospitality” could save the world . . . Her views are radical and persuasive, rooted in the knotty, sensual, frequently funny complexity of her peripatetic life . . . compellingly beautiful
The subject of food and its many-threaded associations – of generosity and privation, sharing and hoarding, diversity and denial, pleasure and fear – is the starting point for this absorbing meditation on the interface of self with other in contemporary Europe. Priya Basil writes with honesty, clarity and wit about what it means to be hospitable in a culture of selfishness, and the problems and possibilities of commonality
Rachel Cusk
A brave and beautiful exploration into food, race, memory and the very meaning of life. I read it greedily - and so will you
Meera Sodha
Be My Guest is a great essay on food and hospitality, on the act of sharing meals together, of family and of migration. It uses food and feeding guests and ideas of hospitality to ask bigger, wider questions about the precariousness of immigration and the inhospitable times we find ourselves in. Beautifully, deliciously written
Nikesh Shukla
Priya Basil
View profilePriya Basil was born in London to a family with Indian roots and grew up in Kenya. She is a novelist and essay-writer whose work has been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She is the co-founder of Authors for Peace, a political platform for writers and artists. She lives in Berlin.
priyabasil.com
Priya Basil
View profilePriya Basil was born in London to a family with Indian roots and grew up in Kenya. She is a novelist and essay-writer whose work has been nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Dylan Thomas Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. She is the co-founder of Authors for Peace, a political platform for writers and artists. She lives in Berlin.
priyabasil.com
