Osayi Endolyn

Osayi Endolyn is a James Beard Award-winning writer who explores food, identity, and culture. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, Eater, Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel + Leisure, and more. Osayi co-authored the national best-selling cookbook “The Rise: Black Cooks and the Soul of American Food” with Marcus Samuelsson. She has appeared on numerous television series and podcasts, including Chef’s Table and Ugly Delicious on Netflix, and The Next Thing You Eat on Hulu. Following the success of her essays for the celebrated collections “You and I Eat the Same” and “Women on Food,” she is working on a new book that explores systemic racism in American restaurant and dining culture for Amistad/HarperCollins. A California native and former resident of the South, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York.

• Won the 2019 IACP Award for Best Book of the Year in Food Matters for "You and I Eat the Same," which was also named one of the best food books of the year by The New Yorker, Smithsonian, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, and more
• Won the UC Berkeley-11th Hour Food & Farming Journalism Fellowship in 2019
• Won a 2018 James Beard Award for her column “Missed Cues” for Southern Foodways Alliance's Gravy
• Named one of “30 Women Moving Southern Food Forward” by Southern Living in 2018
• Featured on NPR’s 1A, The Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry, The Splendid Table with Francis Lam, Special Sauce with Ed Levine, All Heart, and The Sporkful podcast, for which she and the team won a 2020 Webby
• Serves on the board of trustees for the Edna Lewis Foundation and the board of directors for Radical Xchange
• Received a bachelor’s degree in French from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a minor in Afro-American studies
• Received a master’s degree in writing from the Savannah College of Art and Design