When Hungry, Eat is about hunger, loss, love, pain and finding your way home again. It begins shortly after Fedler hits 40, when she takes a long hard look at herself. And what she sees is excess baggage which she is carrying on her.She seeks the counsel of a dietician who peremptorily informs her that she’s obese. The food fascist, as she is fondly referred to in the book, also decrees a strict diet and instructs Fedler to wear a pedometer and do 10,000 steps a day, to boost her “sluggish metabolism.”And so Fedler embarks on a journey to lose weight.But as so often happens in life, just when you think you’ve finally understood something, you realize that it’s something else, quite different.Her journey is indeed about loss, but not of weight; it is the loss of home, a land, a family and an identity. “The book is about learning to let go of the things that you love and deal with loss in a way that takes you forward in your life.”FEDLER GREW up in South Africa in a designated a Whites Only Area. She was raised in a Jewish home and received a Jewish education. So how Jewish is she, I ask. “In percentage? Well, judging by my nose, I am definitely, 100 percent Jewish.”She turns to the side and points to her protruding snout in profile.“I married a Jew and we keep the Jewish holidays, although I try to give them a more universal meaning.”Her father was a well-known political cartoonist for The Star, parodying the absurdities of apartheid, and her mother made chicken soup. Fedler studied law and by the time she graduated she had already become a political activist, attended antigovernment demonstrations and tasted tear gas. She went on to become a law lecturer and an outspoken advocate for women’s rights in Johannesburg, where she worked as a legal counselor at a women’s crisis center before setting up a legal advocacy center to end violence against women.And she had her work cut out for her because, as South Africa was emerging into the light of post-apartheid democracy, the country was descending into a dark tunnel of violence, a raw, random and sadistic kind of violence. And yet, she loved South Africa with a burning passion.The book offers a glimpse into a country “that can feed your soul and extinguish your heart in the space of a heartbeat.” With wit and humor she depicts a country of immense beauty, inhabited by people singing harmonious songs and showing colossal kindness. In beautiful prose and chilling details, she itemizes the names of victims of domestic violence, murdered friends, raped acquaintances and shattered lives. A bipolar sort of country.Finally, after one particularly horrifying event, when “there was no room for the violence to get any closer,” Fedler and her husband decide to take their children and leave the country they had called home. They emigrate to Australia.Her illustrious career ground to a halt. From a feisty political activist and reformer who had been used to a comfortable life, Fedler had to contend with anonymity in the antipodes. The family fortunes also went through a sea change when her husband lost his job. “All of a sudden I had to think whether I could afford a coffee, paying for parking... little things like that. I made jewelry and sold it to bring in some money. It was a humbling experience.”But as one door closes, another opens, and it was in Australia that Fedler discovered her flair for writing. She first published a work of fiction, Secret Mothers’ Business, which became a runaway success, selling more than 150,000 copies worldwide. “Had I not come to Australia, I don’t know if I would have had a writing career.”Possibly not, but as Fedler points out rather philosophically, nothing is truly random. “We are all God’s children and like it says in the Torah: Anochi imach [I am with you].”She declares a strong sense of faith. “My true belief is that God exists,” she summarizes. And then quickly adds: “Oh okay, not God, but there is a spirit.” I am a little confused now. So is religion different than spirituality? “God yes!” she snaps, and then laughs at the irony.SO HOW did her journey change her? What has she learnt in the process of losing 16 kilos of body weight?“Hunger took me to a place of mindfulness,” she explains. “It’s the idea of emptying yourself from ideas about food, losing your vocabulary of eating and then starting again. I learnt to be okay with hunger. It’s like loss, grief or any unpleasant experience. You make friends with it.”She is referring to the voluntary denial of her homeland, the selfimposed exile which forced her to confront hunger in its other, figurative sense. And this is where it all connects: the literal and the metaphoric, the hunger and the satiation. “It took me a while until I found that home is here,” she points to her heart. “It’s what you have inside you. I understood that that learning to eat when I was hungry was just another way of making a home in a new place.”When Hungry, Eat is a profoundly moving narrative. It is not a selfhelp book of the type you find by the cartload in bookshops, nor is it a book containing ideas and recipes for those wishing to diet. But it is, as its dedication suggests, a book for all those who feel lost and long to fit in.Fedler spins a yarn with the craftswomanship of a professional storyteller. Her language is in parts poetic, at times sardonic and irreverent. Her writing engages all the senses – including the gustatory (it contains a recipe for low-fat chicken soup) – and triggers the entire gamut of emotions. From shock to hilarity, from a chuckle to a nod. Many of us have been there, felt that, experienced it. To those of us who have been tossed by the hands of fate across oceans to uncharted places, this book speaks directly to the heart.I am not the first to observe this, she tells me. “People e-mail me all the time to tell me their own personal stories and how this book resonates with their own life. I know it sounds totally sentimental, but I get very tearful when I get some of these e-mails, at the way in which people share such intimacies with me.”Two hours later, we part almost mid-sentence: She has to run. In all this time, I don’t mention that I, too, am dieting. In any case, I already feel much lighter.
No longer anonymous in the antipodes
In a soul-searching journey as an immigrant to Australia, Joanne Fedler lost 16 kilos and found a new purpose.
When Hungry, Eat is about hunger, loss, love, pain and finding your way home again. It begins shortly after Fedler hits 40, when she takes a long hard look at herself. And what she sees is excess baggage which she is carrying on her.She seeks the counsel of a dietician who peremptorily informs her that she’s obese. The food fascist, as she is fondly referred to in the book, also decrees a strict diet and instructs Fedler to wear a pedometer and do 10,000 steps a day, to boost her “sluggish metabolism.”And so Fedler embarks on a journey to lose weight.But as so often happens in life, just when you think you’ve finally understood something, you realize that it’s something else, quite different.Her journey is indeed about loss, but not of weight; it is the loss of home, a land, a family and an identity. “The book is about learning to let go of the things that you love and deal with loss in a way that takes you forward in your life.”FEDLER GREW up in South Africa in a designated a Whites Only Area. She was raised in a Jewish home and received a Jewish education. So how Jewish is she, I ask. “In percentage? Well, judging by my nose, I am definitely, 100 percent Jewish.”She turns to the side and points to her protruding snout in profile.“I married a Jew and we keep the Jewish holidays, although I try to give them a more universal meaning.”Her father was a well-known political cartoonist for The Star, parodying the absurdities of apartheid, and her mother made chicken soup. Fedler studied law and by the time she graduated she had already become a political activist, attended antigovernment demonstrations and tasted tear gas. She went on to become a law lecturer and an outspoken advocate for women’s rights in Johannesburg, where she worked as a legal counselor at a women’s crisis center before setting up a legal advocacy center to end violence against women.And she had her work cut out for her because, as South Africa was emerging into the light of post-apartheid democracy, the country was descending into a dark tunnel of violence, a raw, random and sadistic kind of violence. And yet, she loved South Africa with a burning passion.The book offers a glimpse into a country “that can feed your soul and extinguish your heart in the space of a heartbeat.” With wit and humor she depicts a country of immense beauty, inhabited by people singing harmonious songs and showing colossal kindness. In beautiful prose and chilling details, she itemizes the names of victims of domestic violence, murdered friends, raped acquaintances and shattered lives. A bipolar sort of country.Finally, after one particularly horrifying event, when “there was no room for the violence to get any closer,” Fedler and her husband decide to take their children and leave the country they had called home. They emigrate to Australia.Her illustrious career ground to a halt. From a feisty political activist and reformer who had been used to a comfortable life, Fedler had to contend with anonymity in the antipodes. The family fortunes also went through a sea change when her husband lost his job. “All of a sudden I had to think whether I could afford a coffee, paying for parking... little things like that. I made jewelry and sold it to bring in some money. It was a humbling experience.”But as one door closes, another opens, and it was in Australia that Fedler discovered her flair for writing. She first published a work of fiction, Secret Mothers’ Business, which became a runaway success, selling more than 150,000 copies worldwide. “Had I not come to Australia, I don’t know if I would have had a writing career.”Possibly not, but as Fedler points out rather philosophically, nothing is truly random. “We are all God’s children and like it says in the Torah: Anochi imach [I am with you].”She declares a strong sense of faith. “My true belief is that God exists,” she summarizes. And then quickly adds: “Oh okay, not God, but there is a spirit.” I am a little confused now. So is religion different than spirituality? “God yes!” she snaps, and then laughs at the irony.SO HOW did her journey change her? What has she learnt in the process of losing 16 kilos of body weight?“Hunger took me to a place of mindfulness,” she explains. “It’s the idea of emptying yourself from ideas about food, losing your vocabulary of eating and then starting again. I learnt to be okay with hunger. It’s like loss, grief or any unpleasant experience. You make friends with it.”She is referring to the voluntary denial of her homeland, the selfimposed exile which forced her to confront hunger in its other, figurative sense. And this is where it all connects: the literal and the metaphoric, the hunger and the satiation. “It took me a while until I found that home is here,” she points to her heart. “It’s what you have inside you. I understood that that learning to eat when I was hungry was just another way of making a home in a new place.”When Hungry, Eat is a profoundly moving narrative. It is not a selfhelp book of the type you find by the cartload in bookshops, nor is it a book containing ideas and recipes for those wishing to diet. But it is, as its dedication suggests, a book for all those who feel lost and long to fit in.Fedler spins a yarn with the craftswomanship of a professional storyteller. Her language is in parts poetic, at times sardonic and irreverent. Her writing engages all the senses – including the gustatory (it contains a recipe for low-fat chicken soup) – and triggers the entire gamut of emotions. From shock to hilarity, from a chuckle to a nod. Many of us have been there, felt that, experienced it. To those of us who have been tossed by the hands of fate across oceans to uncharted places, this book speaks directly to the heart.I am not the first to observe this, she tells me. “People e-mail me all the time to tell me their own personal stories and how this book resonates with their own life. I know it sounds totally sentimental, but I get very tearful when I get some of these e-mails, at the way in which people share such intimacies with me.”Two hours later, we part almost mid-sentence: She has to run. In all this time, I don’t mention that I, too, am dieting. In any case, I already feel much lighter.