AI Summary
5 min readIn the opening pages of Amanda Rizkalla’s debut novel Hungered, a 12-year-old girl named Sophia watches her mother describe food they cannot afford. “Mama says we eat with our eyes,” the narrator tells us. “Lava cakes spilling out the center, quesadillas with bell peppers grilled flat inside. Third Street has everything our eyes could want, our eyelids, our teeth that close shut, each blink a bite.” Rizkalla wrote that scene when she was 19, as a college sophomore, drawing on her own experience of housing insecurity as a teenager. The book became Oprah’s 125th Book Club pick, and in this episode of The Oprah Podcast, Rizkalla explains how she turned personal memory into fiction—and what she wants readers to understand about the families who live inside that invisible crisis.
The paradox of invisible upheaval
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Episode Introduction & Oprah's Opening Remarks** - Oprah celebrates the 30th anniversary of her book club and introduces the 125th pick, *Hungered* by Amanda Rizkalla.
- 2 (02:11) **The Origin of the Story** - Amanda explains she started writing *Hungered* as a college assignment at age 19, using her own experience with housing insecurity as a jumping-off point.
- 3 (03:20) **Amanda's Personal Story of Being Unhoused** - Amanda shares that she was unhoused at age 13 after her parents separated and her family moved during the recession.
- 4 (05:08) **Setting Up the Characters and Plot** - Amanda describes *Hungered* as a coming-of-age novel about a girl named Sophia, her mom, and brother, who live in a car after the mom leaves her dad.
- 5 (07:53) **What Amanda Wants Readers to Understand** - Amanda explains she wants readers to grasp the dehumanizing nature of being unhoused and how it can feel like being reduced to a statistic.
- 6 (09:15) **The Power of a Child's Perspective** - Amanda explains she wrote from a 12-year-old's point of view because she was closer to that age when she started writing and could more accurately access that worldview.
- 7 (11:25) **Writing Vividly About Hunger** - Amanda describes how she wanted every instance of hunger and food in the book to translate Sophia's inner life, not just serve as decoration.
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Show Notes
BUY THE BOOK! Hungered by Amanda Rizkalla: https://amzn.to/46Jg4OC
The 125th Oprah’s Book Club selection is the stunning debut novel Hungered by author Amanda Rizkalla. Written from the perspective of 12-year-old Sofia, Hungered gives a unique look inside the world of a family who is unhoused. Amanda shares how her personal experience of losing their housing and living in a car with her family as a child inspired her to write this poignant and beautiful story. Oprah and Amanda have a thoughtful discussion about how - despite the daily struggle to survive - the fictional Sofia and her family are still able to experience joy, humor and compassion. We hear from several readers including a young woman who says that Amanda’s novel resonated with her because she also experienced being unhoused as a child.
00:00:00 - Welcome Amanda Rizkalla, author of “Hungered”
00:02:10 - Amanda shares why she wrote the book
00:05:00 - The plot of Hungered
00:06:40 - Understanding being unhoused
00:12:40 - Growing up mixed race
00:18:15 - Amanda on choosing the mother’s career
00:22:20 - Theme of not belonging
00:26:15 - Amanda’s writing process
00:28:40 - The ending of the book
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