Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo, Author of "Girl, Woman, Other"

Bernardine Evaristo

Author Bernadine Averisto crafted the Booker Prize-winning novel *Girl, Woman, Other* over five years to highlight the scarcity of Black British women in adult fiction, employing her unique "fusion fiction" style to connect twelve diverse characters across a century-long narrative. Her historic victory, facilitated by a judging panel with significant female and minority representation, helped dismantle industry tokenism and coincided with the cultural shifts of the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements. Following the award, the publishing sector actively audited its exclusionary practices, leading to a surge in engagement with works on race and gender while elevating emerging voices like poet Derek Owusu and theatre directors Ola Ince and Lynette Linton.