Nayan Shah is Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity and History at the University of Southern California and author of Contagious Divides and Stranger Intimacy.
Shah recognises that the hunger strike is a nonviolent performance that reconnects the prisoner to her community and to the world of journalism and public debate. But it is also a weapon that can transform the vulnerable and disempowered body of the captive into a remarkably effective instrument in a war for legitimacy. . . . Reaching beyond the prison wall, the voice of the hunger striker implicates us all in its challenge to decide what world we seek to inhabit. * Irish Times * The hunger strike's significance lies in allowing captives and outsiders to disturb the carceral system's control of space and time. These graphic, saddening stories are uncomfortable to read, but they are crucial to understanding that often complex dynamic. * Times Literary Supplement * The real originality of Refusal to Eat rests in its exploration of lesser-known hunger strikes. . . . There is much value in bringing all these hunger strikes together. Doing so renders visible many common threads in hunger strikers' experience, and also their management by doctors' governments across multiple geographical, historical and conflict contexts. Refusal to Eat speaks to a broad audience, having much to say to bioethicists as well as historians. . . . [and] both academic and non-scholarly audiences. * Journal of Social History * Shah's book amplifies important voices and expands the arsenal of evidence that can be used to interrogate and dismantle carceral systems. * Punishment and Society *