Eating Air

by Suyin Du Bois

Steam rises from bowls of noodle soup, tender steaks are seared in butter, sand-roasted chestnuts are shared from a paper bag. Suyin Du Bois's Eating Air is a mouth-watering book of poems about food, belonging and connection.

Charting a journey across cuisines and continents, these poems carve into the author’s dual Chinese-Malaysian and Belgian heritage and food’s enduring role in our cultural, familial and personal histories.

From the low stools of Penang’s kopitiams to the bright lights of London’s Chinatown, Eating Air is a love song to food and a poignant catalogue of its profound capacity to serve up memory, language, and longing.

Genres: Poetry

38 pages, Paperback

Published July 9, 2026

Reviews

[Dan]

I adore this! I'm from a different cultural background to Suyin so my food memories and associations are wildly different and yet so relatable.

Hanging on to the last of something because it truly is the last. Finding home in a scent or taste. Longing, love, memory. A wonderful collection.

[Shantal Fane]

Reading “Eating Air” for the fourth time, I’m starting to realise it’s about so much more than being born across cultures. Striving to be accepted or feeling inept is a daily challenge we all feel and Suyins’ wry, insightful experiences of a “doubled” life always leave me feeling positive and grateful. Appreciative of the unique perspective and clarity being “different” can bring. Whether across divides of culture, status, education, skill, gender or sexuality.

Suyin’s beautifully recounted experiences remind me to gain the most from every situation and value diversity; even those that are harder to understand by reason of language or tradition. Accepting that my initial unease could be the tingling precursor to a valuable discovery.

Like choosing optimistically from a Chinese menu. There are always great discoveries to be made. The delight of slurping longevity noodles without biting… but maybe the slippery chicken feet to avoid? Well, I can only go so far Suyin, but I’m trying! :-)

[Beth]

Very personal and food focused poetry. It wasn’t bad but I just didn’t love it. It certainly talks a lot about food and I found it did ramble on and yet at the same time it felt quite surface level. I would’ve liked to have seen a deeper exploration of the emotions and feelings that the food inspired in the author instead of just lengthy descriptions of the food itself.

[Kelly (kellyinbookland)]

Read for day 2 of the Sealey challenge 2026.

A wholesome little collection. I probably would have enjoyed and resonated more with them if the dishes talked about had been ones I’d tried but now I’ll certainly try to try them.

Poem I loved : The First Mouthful