‘How Come You Don’t Cook?’ by Itianu Emiaj Deserves a Place on Every Contemporary Fiction Reading List

Every family has conversations that begin with simple questions and gradually uncover something much deeper. Topics surrounding cooking, household responsibilities, and daily routines often reveal values, traditions, and expectations that have been passed from one generation to another. Those discussions become the foundation of stronger understanding when people are willing to listen.

In How Come You Don’t Cook?, Itianu Emiaj turns an ordinary question into a compelling contemporary story that examines relationships, family traditions, and the evolving roles of women and men. Blending humor with thoughtful storytelling, the novel invites readers to reflect on how shared responsibilities influence the people closest to them.

Finding Meaning in Everyday Family Life

One of the most engaging qualities of the novel is its ability to transform ordinary experiences into meaningful reflections. Through the character of Onyka, readers journey through stories rooted in family memories, where cooking becomes a recurring thread connecting different generations.

Every recollection offers insight into how household responsibilities have shaped family relationships over time. Meals represent care, togetherness, and tradition, yet they also expose assumptions that many people accept without questioning. As Onyka revisits these experiences, readers gain a deeper appreciation of how everyday routines quietly influence personal identity and family dynamics.

The narrative remains warm and approachable throughout. Moments of gentle humor naturally balance more reflective passages, making the story enjoyable while encouraging thoughtful discussion. Readers may recognize familiar situations within their own families, allowing How Come You Don’t Cook? to create an immediate emotional connection.

The story reminds readers that cooking extends far beyond preparing food. It represents affection, responsibility, cooperation, and the choices people make every day within their relationships.

Challenging Long-Held Beliefs With Compassion

A central strength of How Come You Don’t Cook? lies in its thoughtful exploration of changing social expectations. As modern families continue to evolve, many traditional beliefs surrounding domestic responsibilities still influence everyday life.

The novel examines the pressure many women experience as they manage successful careers while continuing to shoulder much of the work within the home. It also reflects on the long-standing expectation that men should primarily serve as providers. Rather than presenting these realities through conflict alone, Emiaj approaches them with empathy and understanding.

Each character contributes a unique perspective shaped by personal experience and family history. This balanced storytelling encourages readers to appreciate why different opinions exist while considering whether inherited expectations continue to reflect today’s relationships.

The book gently encourages readers to rethink familiar assumptions without dismissing the traditions that many families value. Instead, it promotes conversations built on mutual respect and shared understanding.

Its memorable message captures this philosophy beautifully:

“It’s time we stopped asking who should cook and started asking how we can cook together.”

That simple statement reflects a broader vision of partnership. Relationships flourish when responsibilities are shared through communication, cooperation, and genuine appreciation for one another.

A Contemporary Story That Sparks Conversation

Beyond its engaging characters and relatable situations, the novel succeeds because it encourages dialogue long after the final chapter. Readers are invited to consider their own experiences while reflecting on the customs and expectations that shape everyday family life.

Emiaj writes with authenticity, drawing inspiration from real-life situations that many people have either experienced personally or observed within their communities. As a result, the conversations feel believable and emotionally grounded.

The themes explored throughout the book remain relevant across cultures and generations. Whether someone is beginning a new relationship, raising a family, or reflecting on childhood experiences, the story offers opportunities for meaningful self-reflection.

Book clubs and reading groups may find the novel especially rewarding because its themes naturally inspire thoughtful discussion. Readers may leave with different opinions, yet the conversations themselves become part of the book’s lasting impact.

Those interested in experiencing How Come You Don’t Cook? can purchase the book directly through the author’s official website.

About the Author

Itianu Emiaj is a Mozambican author whose storytelling is inspired by everyday conversations and the lived experiences of family members, friends, acquaintances, and people she has encountered throughout her life. Her writing encourages readers to engage thoughtfully with subjects such as marriage, motherhood, family relationships, and social expectations while fostering compassion, understanding, and respect for differing viewpoints.

Her published works include This Body Is Not Mine, How Come You Don’t Cook?, You Don’t Have a Husband Are You Okay?, I’m Afraid of My Protector, Who Is Going to Take Care of You When You Are Old?, and Who Will Save My Brother. Although she describes herself as a fiction writer, many of her stories are inspired by authentic experiences and conversations, giving her work a remarkable sense of realism. Alongside her literary career, Emiaj is a dedicated human rights activist whose professional work has focused on promoting equality, challenging discrimination, and empowering marginalized communities through transformational social initiatives.

Why This Story Deserves a Place on Every Bookshelf

How Come You Don’t Cook? demonstrates how everyday conversations can inspire lasting reflection about fairness, family, and partnership. Through engaging storytelling, relatable characters, and thoughtful observations, Itianu Emiaj offers readers a novel that celebrates empathy, shared responsibility, and meaningful dialogue. It is a contemporary work that encourages people to appreciate one another’s contributions while imagining healthier and more balanced relationships for future generations.

We had the privilege of interviewing the author. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Hi, thank you so much for joining us today! Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do.

My name is Itianu Emiaj and I’m a female fiction writer although I’m always conflicted with saying fiction given that the stories that I write about are based on real life scenarios either my own or other people lived experiences, of people that I know or conversations that I had or heard from strangers and with the view to influence change in people’s lives, hopefully for the better. And before I unintentionally start an unnecessary debate or controversy, I’m not questioning the concepts (fiction vs nonfiction), starting a campaign to change the categories or anything in those or any other lines. I’m just saying what I feel when I have to decide a category where my writing fits.

Besides being a writer, I’m a human rights activist, and most of my life’s work has been facilitating transformational processes to fight discrimination and inequality and support marginalized groups’ empowerment.

Please tell us about your journey.

I consider myself a citizen of the world because I don’t believe in borders, given that they are people-made, and I love to travel, meet new people, explore different cultures, and enrich myself with the beautiful mosaic that human diversity is made of. Plus, there is an illusion that we are more different than we are. When in fact, the reality shows that the core of human nature and fundamental needs are pretty much the same. Nonetheless, I’m Mozambican, as I was lucky enough to be born in Mozambique.

My journey as a writer started way before I grabbed the pen and made the decision to write. And what do I mean by that?

Since I was little, I felt like I didn’t belong here. Yes, it might sound odd, weird, or let’s say it, crazy. But that’s how I genuinely felt most times. There was something odd about how human beings related to one another in their consistent inconsistencies, if that makes sense, which made me sad. There were too many contradictions that were embedded in many rules that we need to follow, and it was confusing to me, as if we were complicating simple things. As I grew up, rather than disappearing, the feelings of sadness and confusion just kept growing bigger and bigger, and for many years, more than I can count, numerous thoughts about the contradictions started to consistently have long and exhaustive meetings in my head. Exhaustive because in my head it was rather simple, and yet the reality showed otherwise.

At a given point, I thought that I would write them as essays for publication or papers for presentation at conferences regarding related topics. However, years passed and due to my crazy work schedule, yeah, being a human rights activist is not for the faint of heart (smile), the papers and essays never came to life. Yet the meetings in my head never stopped. In the end, sadness and confusion invited frustration to the meetings, and this one doesn’t have patience.

So, last year, during my yearly holidays, I had a “call” from the creator with a deadline telling me that procrastination time was long overdue, and it was time to start writing. Unfortunately for me (so I thought), as a “punishment for my laziness” (smile), it would no longer come in the shape of papers or essays as I initially planned but rather books. Six, to be more specific, for now. When I received the call, I nearly passed out given that I never considered myself a writer and, different from some friends of mine who enjoy writing, I was never inclined to do so, except when it comes to reports, those I enjoyed writing. But then again, it’s a different kind of writing. Nevertheless, there it was, the call, without an invitation but with a challenge that I could no longer run away from. It had caught up with me. If I’m being honest, I was also tired of providing the office in my head free of charge for those meetings to happen. Therefore, it was time to gather my fears, insecurities, and impostor syndrome (I’m not a writer, remember?) and put an end to such meetings in my head and set them free in the world. So, after my well-deserved holidays, my sabbatical year to write the books began, and I decided to write in a way that I wished the conversations about the topics looked like… heart to heart. So, here they are fresh from the oven and ready to be consumed and hopefully enjoyed by those who choose them as companions. May the readers feel the heart in the conversations.

What are the strategies that helped you become successful in your journey?

I measure my success based on the kind of impact I have or try to have in people’s lives, regardless of the type of relationship that I have with them (family, friends, colleagues, etc). Having said that, what has made my journey successful is my ability to, even when I’m having what I consider to be uncomfortable or difficult conversations, genuinely listen to people even when I don’t agree. I try to understand what people say and where they are coming from, or even how they feel when I don’t understand. Oh yeah… at times we simply don’t understand others. However, if it’s not a crime or something harmful to anybody, I peacefully disagree while respecting their views. We live in a diverse world rich with a myriad of views and experiences; therefore, we are bound to disagreement, which doesn’t mean we are at war with one another.

I’d add my openness and ability to acknowledge my ignorance. I don’t need to have an opinion on everything because I don’t know everything. This allows me to consistently learn from diverse ways of seeing and understanding life and the world. Finally, yet the most important in my view, I try to be empathic.

I believe that once we realise that not everything is about us or is a competition, know when to let go of things that don’t affect us or that are none of our business, learn and consider ways of seeing the world fundamentally different from ours, life and the world becomes more enriching than divisive.

Any message for our readers?

I hope with my writing to inspire deep and honest, self and collective, reflections about the embedded contradictions within the rules that we grow up blindly following regarding topics such as marriage, children, old age, among others that I write about which, in current times, are violently cracking while making us miserable. I’m also inviting readers to start or continue (for those who already started) their journey of unlearning patterns and behaviors informed by such rules that may no longer serve them. Insisting on blindly following them is making us miserable. In addition, I also extend the invitation to those who, like me, have been suffering, silently or loudly, refusing to accommodate themselves to such rules, to gather all the courage and power within to embrace and live the life that they wanted for themselves all along, unapologetically.

We live in a beautiful mosaic, with us being the main pieces, where the norm is diversity, and although the invention of a one-size-fits-all recipe might have worked before, it is currently the poison that leads to unnecessary and dangerous polarization with harmful impacts on people’s lives. We are way more alike in what we want, at our core, and way more diverse in the way we want, and it’s ok. The mosaic has space to accommodate all the diversity, and that is what makes it insanely beautiful! No one needs to shrink for others to exist.

Thank you so much, Itianu Emiaj, for giving us your precious time! We wish you all the best for your journey ahead!