TOUCHING ON some of the inspirations for her books, describing a “crushing” relationship with a woman and family being an important part of her work, Bernardine Evaristo is a candid guest in the recent episode of This Cultural Life, a new series of in-depth conversations with artists and creatives.

Interviewed by John Wilson, Evaristo describes growing up in London in the 60s and 70s. Asked ‘how aware of racism on the streets were you, of danger?’, she responds: “Racism as a term – I don’t remember encountering it when I was very young, but of course we were a mixed, interracial, biracial family in a white area, so it existed, for sure.

“And they used to smash our windows in on a regular basis, and we knew that was because we were brown people. But it was only when I was a teenager that I started to engage with the idea of racism.”

Evaristo cites the church, theatre and specifically Shakespeare as inspiration for her books. And she describes seeing the play ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf’ by Ntozake Shange.

BE: “I saw that when I was at drama school and loved it. And I kind of realised that that spoke to me, the stories spoke to me as a young black woman growing up in this very white society. But also, I love the fact that she was experimental with form, because I didn’t feel that I was part of the British tradition. I wasn’t accepted as British. I kind of rejected any kind of British notions of culture in a way and so this drama, it kind of struck a chord with me.”

JW: “In terms of the multiplicity of voices, of characterisation, there’s a link isn’t there between that [Shange’s play] and ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ in which you have 12 characters” 

BE: “Yes. It’s very interesting because actually, those early influences ‘Under Milkwood’ and ‘For Colored Girls’, which I encountered before I was twenty, you can see how they have inspired forty-odd years later ‘Girl, Woman, Other’. Although of course I’ve read so many other books since, but those particular works and those early life experiences, yeah they’re there in the work.”

Another cultural highlight for Evaristo is attending the Greenwich and Lewisham Young People’s Theatre (now called the Tramshed) from the age of 12, and her own theatre company, Theatre of Black Women, which she co-founded with Patricia Hilaire and Paulette Randall in the 80s.

JW: Looking back what do you think you learned from Theatre of Black Women and possibly that you brought to your work as a novelist?

BE: “The main thing I learned was the value of doing it for yourself. That it was possible to make a difference by getting off your arse and creating the theatre or the artistic projects that are not there for you. And as a writer that is also what I do. And of course I wrote for many years and nobody was waiting for me to publish books, nobody was commissioning me, I just wrote on spec  and hoped that somebody would publish me. And I leaned that from the youth theatre, you just do what you need to do and hope that it works out”.

Evaristo describes a “crushing” relationship with a woman as an influence on her life and work.

BE: “I had a five year relationship with a woman where they were the dominant person in the relationship and I was slowly crushed. I mean that’s how I see it, I was slowly crushed by this person to the extent that I think I lost the capacity to be independent and to think for myself…. I changed the way I dressed, we wore matching tracksuits and trainers. I was a very stylish dresser before then!”

BE: For some of that time I didn’t feel the effect of what was happening. It was only when the relationship became difficult and I started to fight back that I realised I was trapped and I thought I would be trapped for the rest of my life, you know I didn’t think I would be able to escape this person.”

BE: “There was a point that all my friends left during that relationships and I didn’t see anybody without that person being present, so that’s how much independence I lost”.

Family is an important part of Evaristo’s work, and something that she says is often underplayed in responses to her writing.

JW: What about the relationships with your own family?

BE: “I think perhaps it’s inevitable, family features a lot in my writing, and that’s not something that’s picked up a lot. Because people tend to look at the big social issues, they may say I’m writing about racism even when I’m not. Or sexuality or class, and that’s sometimes thrown into the mix of my works, but actually, I think family is a thread that runs throughout all of my books.”

This Cultural Life, 19:15 Saturday, October 16 on Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

Black British Voices