[XI, 26, 25] CENT’ANNI DI KAFKAONE HUNDRED YEARS OF KAFKA

This paper examines the historical and literary intersections between Franz Kafka’s 1922 short story, A Hunger Artist, and the experiences of Irish hunger strikers aboard the Argenta prison ship during the same year. I explore how the performative self-denial of Kafka’s protagonist mirrors the protest strategies of Irish nationalist prisoners, who weaponised starvation as a political tool to resist inhumane treatment and contest the legitimacy of Ireland’s partition. By drawing analogy between Kafka’s hunger artist and the political hunger strikers in Ireland, I demonstrate the complex ways in which both figures used their bodies as instruments of protest. Drawing on Emmanuel Levinas’ concept of hunger as an ethical awakening, I consider how the spectacle of starvation—whether in literature or history—functions as a site of protest that forces society to confront its moral responsibilities.

KEYWORDS: Hunger, Irish hunger strikes, Argenta prison ship, political protest, starvation

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