Gourmets

Author's name: Lu Wen Fu

After reading "The Gourmet," you might look at food differently, because before anything else, it presents food not just as "eating," but as one of three main characters in the novel: the glutton who loves food, the revolutionary who sees gluttony as a necessity in a socialist society, and food, which forms the stage for the novel's events. At the same time, it reveals the transformations of modern Chinese society, starting from the city of Suzhou, famous for its food and restaurants, where the novel's events take place. The Gourmet is the most important work of the Chinese writer Lu Wenfut, and was first published in 1983 in the first issue of Al-Hasad magazine. The writer, who worked as a journalist for several years, opened the Old Sozhou House restaurant to serve traditional sozhou cuisine, challenging the traditional restaurant as a means of achieving his ideal of good food. He was well-known in the Chinese literary community for his work in the restaurant business. The novel, although it revolves around food, offers us a comprehensive picture of the transformations that China witnessed in the twentieth century. This book is an updated version of the Arabic translation of the novel “The Gourmet,” which was first published in 2016 as part of the awards series issued by the General Book Authority. Although this novel is literary, it is deeply and richly woven with food and the relationships that connect it to culture and society, humanity, life, and taste.