Announcing the second session of #WeTurnToBooks:The Decade Project edition — an Instagram Live chat between Ozoz Sokoh and Petina Gappah!

This time round, we’re thrilled to have Ozoz Sokoh take over our Instagram Live to chat with Petina Gappah about food and fiction. Specifically, about Halima, a cook who is one of the narrators of Gappah’s phenomenal novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light, and the novel’s gastronomic universe.

We can’t think of a person better than Ozoz Sokoh to speak to Gappah about food and fiction. Sokoh is one of Nigeria’s foremost food bloggers and researchers. At once a food explorer, culinary anthropologist, and food historian, she continually blows our minds with her amazing recipes inspired by food references in fiction and her equally amazing food photography. In fact, she’s teamed up with us for a special edition of her famous Eat the Book series for The Decade Project: you can check out her recipes here, here, and here. Check out her blog and Instagram too!

Petina Gappah almost needs no introduction. A lawyer by profession, Gappah is also the author of two short story collections — An Elegy for Easterly (2009) and Rotten Row (2016) — and two novels — The Book of Memory (2015) and Out of Darkness, Shining Light (2019). Among other honors, she is the winner of the 2009 Guardian First Book Award and the 2016 McKitterick Prize, and her work has been nominated for the PEN Literary Awards and the NAACP Image Awards. She’s also got a couple of plays up her sleeves: check out the news on her latest about the banning of a Dambudzo Marechera novel here.

We’re super stoked to be able to host Ozoz Sokoh and Petina Gappah as part of our Instagram Live chat series. Tune in Wednesday, September 30, at 12pm EST/ 5pm GMT+1 for what promises to be a fun and lively conversation about food, books, and…food!