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Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Olia Hercules

Olia Hercules
Olia Hercules was born in the south of Ukraine in 1984. She left her home town Kakhovka at the age of twelve, when she moved to Cyprus.

After finishing school, she moved to the UK where she studied Italian language and International Relations at the University of Warwick. After spending a year in Italy, Olia settled in London, pursuing a journalistic career after completing her Master’s degree.

Following the financial crisis of 2008, Olia decided to quit her job as a film business reporter to pursue her dream to cook for a living.

She trained at the renowned Leiths School of Food and Wine and then worked as a chef de partie in restaurants, including Ottolenghi, and as a recipe developer before landing a book deal for Mamushka, a cookbook that celebrates her family recipes, from Ukraine and Moldova to Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan. Mamushka has won the prestigious Fortnum and Mason Award for best debut cookbook 2016.It has been translated into five languages, and to date has sold over 100,000 copies worldwide. Olia was named the Observer Rising Star of 2015.

Her second cookbook is called Kaukasis: a culinary journey through Georgia, Azerbaijan and beyond. It was published on August 10th in the UK and Australia and in October 2017 in the US, Canada, Germany and Poland.

She is currently working on her third cookbook, Summer Kitchen, with Bloomsbury. It will be published in spring 2020.

Olia lives in London with her son Sasha and husband Joe, writing, cooking and feeding her unceasing curiosity by researching food culture and culinary traditions of countries less explored.

  • Our other speakers: 
  • Briony Bax
  • Tim Wells
  • Tom Huddleston
  • John Osborne
  • Paul Scraton
  • Sheila Dillon
  • Georgina Pringle
  • Natasha Carthew
  • Stephen Morris
  • Louie Stowell
  • Paul Burston
  • Diana Henry
  • Shiromi Pinto
  • Jo Neary
  • Mazin Saleem
  • Neil Denny
  • Nicola Kent
  • Joel Golby
  • Magdalene Forés
  • Alan Johnson
  • Jenny Linford
  • Sean Longden
  • Lauren Laverne
  • Niall McDevitt
  • Michele Kirsch
  • Andy Miller
  • Ken Worpole
  • Dina Nayeri
  • Rachel McCormack
  • Travis Elborourgh
  • Sue Quinn
  • Greta Bellamacina
  • Nigella Lawson
  • Nikesh Shukla
  • Mariam Khan
  • John Hegley
  • Isobel Galleymore
  • Dorian Lynsky
  • Suzanne Noble
  • Kostya Tsolákis
  • Fernando Sdrigotti
  • Zawe Ashton
  • Joe Kerr
  • Nadia Valman
  • Torcuil Crichton
  • Jan Noble
  • Anna Birch
  • Rosie Price
  • Lynn Enright
  • Julius Beltrame
  • Valerie Brandes
  • Kit Caless
  • Elizabeth Macneal
  • Ed Miliband
  • Julia Bueno
  • Suzi Feay
  • Thurston Moore
  • Zia Ahmed
  • Ryann Donnelly
  • Coco Khan
  • Debora Robertson
  • Sophie Naufal
  • Will Wiles
  • Alex Clark
  • Lee Jackson
  • Sav Akyuz
  • Francesca Cassini
  • Daniel Trilling
  • Ben Moor
  • Anita Sethi
  • Lara Maiklem
  • Patrice Lawrence
  • Joel Morris & Jason Hazeley
  • Alice Lascelles
  • Francesca Segal
  • Alissa Timoshkina
  • Yasmin Khan
  • Johny Pitts
  • Joe Haddow
  • Alex Jackson
  • Sali Hughes
  • Saima Mir
  • Golnoosh Nour
  • Jody Porter
  • Caroline Bobby
  • Emanuelle Dirix
  • Amir Dotan
  • Robyn Travis
  • Sophie Parkin
  • Xanthi Barker
  • Serena Constance
  • Felicity Cloake
  • Sophie Parkin
  • Gareth E. Rees
  • Kiare Ladner
  • Nick Thorpe
  • Melanie McGrath
  • Crystal Mahey-Morgan
  • Ana Seferović
  • Michael Bravo
  • Eloise Millar
  • Jude Rogers
  • Catherine Steadman
  • Richard Boon
  • Roger Robinson
  • Jeremy Reed
  • Olia Hercules
  • Jamie Lee
  • Bruno Vincent
  • Caroline Rosie Dent
  • Anthony Cartwright
  • Kerry Hudson
  • Dan O’Brien
  • Jessica Martin
  • Jean McNeil
  • Karen Liebenguth
  • Natasha Carthew
  • Robert Montgomery
  • Wendy Jones
  • Henny Beaumont
  • Niki Segnit
  • Ken Worpole
  • Kirsten Norrie
  • Claire Armitstead
  • Michael Goldfarb
  • Ashley Hickson-Lovence
  • Geoff Nicholson
  • Nadia Shireen
  • Martin Rowson
  • Pete Brown
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