Michèle Roberts will be discussing French Cooking for One, with Chener Books, as part of this year’s South-East London BookFest 2025.

Michéle Roberts is the author of fifteen acclaimed novels, including Daughters of the House (winner of the W.H.Smith Literary Award and shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction), and is a former food writer for the New Statesman. 

She is Emeritus Professor of Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, a Chevalier de l’ordre des arts et des lettres and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature – but, rebel that she is, Roberts refused an OBE. Born in 1949 and raised in a bilingual French-English household, Roberts learned to cook from her French grandparents in Normandy. 

Her love of food and cookery has always shone through in her novels and short stories. French Cooking for One is Roberts’ first cookbook and – based on high street sales and audience engagement at events hosted by Toppings Edinburgh, the Edinburgh Festival, Hatchards Piccadilly and Daunt Books Marylebone ­– is already a classic. French Cooking for One has earned praise from Nigella Lawson ('an enduring delight for readers and cooks alike') and Rachel Cooke ('so many micro feasts, and every one of them nourishment for body and soul'), among others.

Booking is open for tickets here.