Writing & Society Research Centre 'Writing by the River' Event: Michael Shaikh - The Last Sweet Bite

An in-conversation event followed by poetry and food

In The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found, writer and former human rights investigator Michael Shaikh traces the intimate relationship between food, violence, and resistance across some of the most fraught conflict zones. A groundbreaking combination of travel writing, memoir, and cookbook, The Last Sweet Bite uncovers how humanity’s appetite for violence shapes what’s on our plate. Animated by touching personal interviews, original reporting, and extraordinary recipes from modern-day conflict zones across the globe, Shaikh reveals the stories of how genocide, occupation, and civil war can disappear treasured recipes, but also introduces us to the extraordinary yet overlooked home cooks and human rights activists trying to save them. From a sprawling refugee camp in Bangladesh and a brutal civil war in Sri Lanka to the drug wars in the Andes and the enduring effects of America’s westward expansion, Shaikh highlights resilient diasporic communities refusing to let their culinary heritage become another casualty of war.

In this conversation, Raaza Jamshed speaks with Michael Shaikh about the many roles he inhabited in writing and documenting The Last Sweet Bite, the impulses and animating force behind the book, the ways in which it reshaped his own relationship to food, and the kind of work he hopes the book will undertake in the world. The conversation will also explore the intersections of literature and human rights, the role of storytelling in conditions of crisis, and the possibilities it opens for cultural preservation and repair.

The conversation will be followed by Western Sydney University students reading poems on the topics of food, human rights, and resistance (organised by the Student-Staff Partnership team of WSU Library), as well as a sample of students' cherished foods (prepared by the Inclusive Community team, also of WSU). The aim of the latter is to acknowledge that preserving food culture has everything to do with the incredible flavour and aroma of locally made, fresh, simple foods. Western Sydney University students carry the living memory of many foods and cultures, and the hope is to give attendees a taste of some of these flavours and to meet one or two of our students who embody that experience.

MICHAEL SHAIKH is a writer and human rights investigator who has worked for twenty years in areas marred by political crisis and armed conflict. He has worked at Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, the Center for Civilians in Conflict, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the New York City Mayor’s Office of Climate and Environmental Justice. He is also the author The Last Sweet Bite: Stories and Recipes of Culinary Heritage Lost and Found (Crown 2025). Michael is on the board of Adi Magazine and Fortify Rights. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, he lives in New York City. 

RAAZA JAMSHED is a writer, editor, and scholar working at the intersection of global literature, narrative ethics, and politically engaged fiction and nonfiction. She holds a Doctor of Creative Arts from Western Sydney University, where she is an adjunct fellow. She is Editor-in-Chief of Guernica and a 2026 fellow of the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. Her debut novel, What Kept You? (Giramondo, 2025), a feminist work of literary fiction, was released to critical acclaim.

PLEASE NOTE that people who rsvp will be sent a reminder two days prior to the event with instructions on how to get to the venue.