Fat
At sixteen, Regina began cutting back on meals to the point where her hair started to fall out. Later, she began to binge at night while her family slept. For a long time, she was able to keep her eating disorder a secret, though hiding her problem didn’t stop it from harming her emotional and physical well-being. The pressures of wanting to succeed as an artist led her to a nervous breakdown and, finally, a strong desire to start from scratch.
In Fat, Austrian-born author and artist Regina Hofer documents her battle with anorexia and bulimia. This powerful and imaginative graphic novel follows Regina from her childhood home in Upper Austria, where food and family mealtimes were often associated with feelings of personal failure, to art school at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and a violent reckoning with her dysfunctional family.
Vivid and courageous, this memoir will resonate with anyone living through or seeking to understand what it is like to live with an eating disorder.
Regina Hofer was born in Linz, Austria. She is a freelance animator and illustrator, and she holds degrees in graphic design from the Mozarteum University Salzburg and painting and graphic design from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Originally published in German, Fat is her first graphic novel.