ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the complex relationship that exists between women and girls and food in the works of Japanese women writers working from the 1960s to the present. There is a strong tradition in Japanese literature of idealized women who, for various reasons, do not or cannot eat. This continuum covers folk tales of pre-modern brides who do not eat, through to stylish vampires in the heady years of the 1980s bubble economy, and up to delicate anorexia sufferers grasping for control in at least one aspect of their lives in the 2000s. In Kono Taeko's short story "Bone Meat" a woman considers the belongings that her lover has left in her house after he has abandoned her. In contrast to the excesses of "The Vampire Club" and "Bedtime Eyes", Kanehara Hitomi's Snakes and Earrings returns to the frugal climate of a Japan in the middle of an economic downturn.
