The prequel to Chocolat, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp, author Joanne Harris talks to Daniel Hahn about her character Vianne Rocher six years before she opens her scandalous chocolaterie in the small French village of Lansquenet, a town full of secrets, where she discovers that cooking possesses a dangerous magic...

Joanne (OBE, FRSL) is the author of 20 novels and has written cookbooks and many short stories. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge, she was Chair of the Society of Authors between 2020 and 2024. Joanne was born in Yorkshire and grew up above her grandparents’ sweet shop.

Daniel Hahn is a writer, editor and translator. His works of non-fiction include Catching Fire: A Translation Diary; and The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. His new book If This Be Magic: The Unlikely Art of Shakespeare in Translation will be published in April 2026.