Abstrakt
This article concerns the literary portrayal of anorexia in an autobiographical book Já jsem hlad (I am hunger) by Petra Dvořáková. It focuses on the biographical, social and philosophical contexts of the text, emphasizing that the author's struggle with eating disorders runs parallel to her search for her own place in a "male world".
Accepting the Cartesian dualistic distinction between mind and body the author tries to reject her female body. At the same time she does not focus on her intellectual development or professional career, but on a role of "feeder" of others and defines herself through her relations with her mother, husband, lover and child, and later thorough anorexia: "I am hunger".
However, her project of constructing her own identity is doomed to failure until she is able to recognize the right to have and satisfy her own needs. This recognition is a turning point - now the building of her own independent identity can begin.