After the assault, food offered solace, and fat offered protection. She claims the label of victim as well as survivor, not wanting to underplay the violence she endured. In her “well-manicured exclusive suburban neighborhood” a group of boys from “good families” gang raped her when she was twelve. The daughter of Haitian immigrants, Roxane Gay’s memoir reveals how her relationship with her body was brutally altered as a child. To this day, Haiti remains the poorest, blackest, and most isolated Caribbean country.
Europe and the US shunned the newly freed nation. Haiti paid France the modern equivalent of $21 billion. In response, France deployed warships, demanding compensation for loss of kidnapped African bodies and stolen Indigenous land. Haitians successfully overthrew slavery in 1803. Yet Haiti is the unseen backdrop to Gay’s memoir Hunger: a fierce, black, female, fat narrative. US-based audiences know so little of Haiti-other than earthquake or poor-few people associate Haiti with Gay’s razor wit and unaccented American voice. She is often read as a black feminist, but her Haitian roots rarely get more than a passing mention. Roxane Gay is America’s favorite bad feminist.
