From the bestselling Ukrainian cookery writer comes a profound meditation on the hopes and fears across generations amid political upheaval

'An instant classic' NIGELLA LAWSON

'Sweeping, intimate, defiant and brimming with love' LOUISE KENNEDY

'It is the roots that keep the trees from falling during a storm. Olia Hercules tells us that the same is true for people and nations' SERHII PLOKHY

I am writing this story without knowing its end: it begins long before I was born and will continue long after I die. I am writing this story to help myself heal and to make you understand.

Strong Roots is the story of a century in Ukraine told through four generations of one extraordinary family. It takes us from years of Russification, to Olia’s grandmother’s deportation to snowy wastelands under Stalin, to her Aunt Zhenia's school protest, to her own parents’ flight from Ukraine when their town was occupied in 2022.

This is an ode to the land, to ideas of home and belonging, and to family stories and recipes passed down the generations – the tang of sour cherries, the best way to make borsch. It is an account of resilience in the hardest of circumstances.

Strong Roots brims with hope and grief. It lays bare the compromises and betrayals of generations struggling and surviving through war, peace, invasion and exile. It is an uplifting reminder of how much the human spirit can endure when born from a land rich with strong roots.

"Hercules's thought-provoking book is full of sparkling images and powerful insights into the relationship between food and society ... Both a history of Ukrainian gastronomic culture - drawing on the array of social and political phenomena that form culinary traditions - and a family saga played out against the background of Ukraine's Soviet and post-Soviet life" - Observer

"An important book you can't put down, spanning several generations that brings to life what war and oppression does to proud people. But it is also a beautifully written and inspiring story about the enduring power of the human spirit ... I cannot recommend it enough" - The Sun

"There is great beauty, fierce joy and an indomitable appetite for life in her rendering of her family's story" - Country Life

"Part memoir and part cultural love letter ... A beautifully written and uplifting read about courage and resilience" - The Sun

"Written with a sizzling pen and a chef's sensitivity to smell and flavour" - Literary Review

"[Strong Roots] looks back over four generations of family for whom war and displacement have been familiar experiences. From her researches into Ukrainian food, Hercules has hours of recorded interviews with relatives. From their voices a family saga emerges. The trauma she describes, both present and past, makes for moving, often painful reading. But the writing itself is a joy" - The Spectator