THERE IS that smile, Cheshire cat wide and warm, that greets me as I arrive at the West London home of writer Bernadine Evaristo. 

Her personal space is as dynamic and multi-layered with influences as the characters she creates in a body of work that has established her as one of Britain’s most successful Black British writers, and a Booker Prize winner in 2019 with ‘Girl, Woman, Other.’

It was that offering – Book Number 8 – that has transformed Bernardine from a respected writer with a portfolio career into an international literary star. 

“I’m still celebrating”, she tells The Voice.’ The way in which winning the prize revolutionized my career was incredible. 

“Literally from one day to the next everything changed. I had been publishing books since 1994 and generally tended to get good reviews but nothing beyond that.

“So much of what I had wanted for my career has now come to me and it also gave me a platform to express what I wanted as people are listening to me. It’s like I have agency and power in a way that I have never had before, and I always wanted it.”

While she admits to an inner strength that mimics that of her strong Nigerian father and white English mother, feeding her desire for power was something she had to manifest for herself. 

“It was difficult growing up in the 60’s and 70’s as a person of colour in a predominantly white area with the in your face racism that my family experienced, but I have never felt powerless because I was always creating and have done what I wanted to do as a writer.”

It came first, as a theatre maker in the 1980’s when as part of London’s black feminist counterculture she formed ‘Theatre of Black Women’ with friends to give a voice to, and tell the stories of the lives of Black British women which she felt were being ignored.

Resilience, a passion for her craft and a life-long commitment to community and creativity as a literary activist have kept her going for four decades, creating and supporting legacy projects and prizes promoting black writers and poets.

From early works such as ‘Lara’ (1997), ‘The Emperor’s Babe’ (2001) and ‘Blonde Roots’ (2008) to ‘Mr Loverman’ (2013) and the now much celebrated ‘Girl, Woman Other’ Bernardine has presented the world with a pot pourri of black lives that explore the African Diaspora, while deep-diving into the complexities of humanity wrapped around broader issues of feminism, racism, sexuality and immigration. 

“I would say that with all my books you get a sense of the history of the characters. You get a sense of where they come from and what the journey has been to reach the point where they are at. I am so interested in human psychology which is why I love gossip. I love celebrity gossip’ she reveals, more with a sense of pride than guilt. 

“I want to know what’s going on behind the façade and the public presentation of who we are. ‘Girl,Women,Other’ expresses something of our humanity as women of colour and non-binary women of colour. That’s what people tell me they get from it. 

“They have a deeper understanding of some of the ways we are as black women in society – just some, because it’s not about everybody, that’s not possible, but when black women tell me they see themselves in the book that’s the greatest compliment.”

The book, which has sold more than a million copies in English with deals in thirty-five territories and twenty-nine languages was also named by Barack Obama as one of his favourite books of that year.

Fusion Fiction

It’s a fact when repeated to her reignites that beaming smile: “To be honest, Barack Obama acknowledging my book was perhaps the biggest thrill of my life. I don’t know him, I’ve never met him, I am not in his orbit, but I am a huge fan, and he is still today an important political figure, so I was like a kid at Christmas, so excited!”

There was perhaps a reality about this significant win that may have tarnished the glory of the moment. Bernadine was the first black woman to win the Booker but had to share the coveted prize with Margaret Atwood who also won for ‘The Testaments.’ So how did she feel about this controversial situation?

“I know the politics and I know how people felt on the outside, but for me it does not feel like half a prize and it did what it was supposed to do which was change my career and bring me international attention. I don’t think its value was reduced because I had to share it with Margaret Atwood. She is wonderful.”

With the power success has afforded the 63-year-old comes a wealth of privilege, but in a society that she admits does not comfortably invite black people into its upper echelons, she remains mindful of her status.

“I am privileged now. I have gone from outsider to ultimate insider which has been happening over the course of the decades to be honest, but I am definitely middle class and I am economically and career privileged. I am also mixed-race privileged. 

“There is shadism in society and although I identify as black, I know as a bi-racial woman I have a privilege in a society that vilifies black men and elevates people according to their skin colour. I am very aware of that, it’s nothing new, I have written about it’

A conversation with this creative flows as freely as her signature ‘fusion fiction’ style of writing. She is curious by nature and can bounce through a range of subjects with aplomb. 

As a professional and an activist, she is uncompromising and can clearly hold her own with anyone who dares try to patronise or deflate her sense of self. It happened once in her thirties, and she has since done enough self-development work to create rigid boundaries for self-care. 

“I had been in a very negative relationship where I had lost my agency, so I was aware that I never wanted to get back into that space where I lost myself to someone else’s bigger personality or desires. 

“So I am careful who I surround myself with. My progress as a human being and an artist is on-going. I have a lot to learn, a lot more to explore and a lot to give.”

Where the novelist, critic, poet, academic and judge will fit anymore into her ‘peripatetic and precarious’ life remains to be seen. 

She is a Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, has numerous Fellowship posts and international invitations and residences as a writer and has this year been appointed President of the Royal Society of Literature – the first writer of colour in the society’s 200-year history and the first not to have studied at Oxford, Cambridge, or Eton. It’s a role that compliments her life-long fight for inclusion across British society. 

“We are in an unprecedented time where books by black writers of every kind are now being published. It was a fad in the past but there had not been activity like we are seeing at this level before. 

“If we can get seats at the decision-making tables then I’m optimistic, but if we are just seen as people that are published as opposed to who are publishing and not part of the wider ecosystem that supports writers then we won’t have change.”

In a post George Floyd era when black creativity and talent is navigating its way into mainstream platforms, Bernadine’s work seems rife for theatre or film adaptation. I confidently write that I believe it’s just a matter of time before this occurs, expanding the Evaristo brand even more.