You are about to listen to a BBC podcast and I'd like to tell you a bit about what goes into making one.

I'm Sadata Sese, an assistant commissioner of podcasts for BBC Sounds.

I pull a lot of levers to support a diverse range of podcasts on all sorts of subjects,

relationships, identity, comedy, even one that mixes poetry, music and inner city life.

So one day I'll be helping host develop their ideas, the next fact-checking, a feature,

and the next looking at how a podcast connects with its audience, and maybe that's you.

So if you like this podcast, check out some others on BBC Sounds.

BBC Sounds, music, radio, podcasts.

Hello, today on Open Book, we turn up the heat for a summer of shamanism and superlative reads in the sunshine, although we can't actually guarantee the sunshine part.

Later, recommendations for the best reads of the season from across the literary spectrum.

But first, Betty Trask awarding author, Irrenesen Okoje, is back with a mythical new novel, Curandera,

drawing together ancient West African spirituality, female desire and contemporary lives in the British capital using a trademark

lyricism. It's a story that flits between Therais, a scientist and alternative healer living

in South London, who encounters three men in the city she feels a strange ancestral connection

to, and Zamira, a woman living in Cape Verde in the 17th century.

Time and space collapse as the two narratives folding on each other,

linked by shamanism and powerful deities.

And so to tell us more about the two worlds she brings together,

I'm pleased to say that Irinicent Okoje joins me now in the Open Book studio.

Welcome to Open Book Irinison.

Hi, Johnny.

Thank you so much for having me.

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