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