Caroline Eden is an author, journalist and book critic regularly contributing to The Guardian, BBC, Financial Times and The Times Literary Supplement.
Her latest book, Red Sands (Quadrille, 2020), is a reimagining of traditional travel writing using food as the jumping-off point to explore Central Asia. The book navigates a course from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the sun-ripened orchards of the Fergana Valley. It was a ‘book of the year’ for FT, Sunday Times and The New Yorker in 2020. It also won the prestigious André Simon Award for best food book 2020. You can buy it here
Black Sea (Quadrille, 2018), a wholly new format fusing travel narrative with recipe book, is the tale of a journey between three great cities: Odesa, Istanbul and Trabzon. Exploring interconnecting culinary cultures, the book brings in the Jewish table of Odesa, a meeting with the last fisherwoman of Bulgaria and retraces the legacies of the White Russian émigrés in Istanbul, and more. It won several awards and prizes including won the Art of Eating Prize and the John Avery Award at the André Simon Awards. It was included in both spring and summer 2019 ‘best reads’ in the New York Times and in the Financial Times Books of the Year list. You can buy it here or in good bookshops.
Her first book Samarkand - Recipes and Stories from Central Asia and the Caucasus was published by Kyle Books in 2016. It was a Guardian book of the year 2016 and it went on to win the Guild of Food Writers Food and Travel award in 2017. You can buy it here or find it for sale in bookshops worldwide. It was translated into several languages, most recently Russian.
Over many years, Caroline has filed stories from Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Russia, Kyrgyzstan Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Haiti and Bangladesh for BBC Radio 4’s From Our Own Correspondent and has spoken to audiences about her adventures at the Financial Times Weekend Festival, British Library, Daunt Books, Royal Geographical Society, Asia House, Stanfords and the Frontline Club.
Caroline began her career writing travel book reviews for The Bookseller then working for Odyssey Guides and Steppe magazine, both companies with a focus on Central Asia while she studied for an MA from SOAS, University of London.
Literary agent: Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates