Bernardine Evaristo is the 2019 winner of the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other, which was a national bestseller and a winner and finalist for many awards including the Women's Prize for Fiction and the Dublin Literary Award. Evaristo is the author of seven other books that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her writing spans verse fiction, short fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism, and drama. Evaristo is President of the Royal Society of Literature, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, and an Honorary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. She received an OBE in 2020, and lives in London with her husband. Her most recent book is Manifesto: On Never Giving Up.
Praise for Girl, Woman, Other: NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019
Named One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2019
Named Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2019
Named Author of the Year by the British Book Awards
Winner of the Indie Book Award for Fiction (UK) and the British
Fiction Book of the Year AwardGold Medal for the 2020 BookTube
Prize for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Dublin Literary
Award, the Gordon Burn Prize, a Publishing Triangle Award, the
Goldsboro Glass Bell Award, the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction,
and the Visionary Honours Award
Longlisted for the Australian Book Industry Award
Named an Amazon Best Book of the Year
Named a Best Book of the Year by the New Yorker, Washington Post,
NPR, Entertainment Weekly, Time, Vogue, Seattle Times, Literary
Hub, Guardian, Sunday Times, Financial Times, Times Literary
Supplement, Kirkus Reviews, Shelf Awareness, New York Public
Library, Chicago Public Library, Washington Independent Review of
Books, New Statesman, Evening Standard, and the Daily
Telegraph"Girl, Woman, Other received half a Booker Prize, but it
deserves all the glory . . . A breathtaking symphony of black
women's voices, a clear-eyed survey of contemporary challenges
that's nevertheless wonderfully life-affirming . . . Together, all
these women present a cross-section of Britain that feels godlike
in its scope and insight."--Ron Charles, Washington Post"A big,
busy novel with a large root system . . . Evaristo has a gift for
appraising the lives of her characters with sympathy and grace
while gently skewering some of their pretensions . . . Evaristo's
lines are long, like Walt Whitman's or Allen Ginsberg's, and there
are no periods at the ends of them. There's a looseness to her tone
that gives this novel its buoyancy. Evaristo's wit helps
too."--Dwight Garner, New York Times"The ambition of this novel,
the inventive structure and syntax, the grand scope, all make for
the most absorbing book I read all year. The characters are so
richly drawn, so intimately known by Evaristo, and so perfectly
rendered on the page. This novel is a master class in storytelling.
It is absolutely unforgettable. When I turned the final page, I
felt the ache of having to leave the world Evaristo created but I
also felt the excitement of getting to read the book all over
again. It should have won the Booker alone. It deserves all the
awards and then some."--Roxane Gay, Gay Magazine"Exuberant,
capacious, and engaging . . . Complex, astute, painful, funny,
enlightening, and most of all enjoyable . . . An elegant and
compulsively readable account of the black women of England . . .
Plumbing the many dimensions of her characters' lives, Evaristo
revels in universals and singularities alike . . . The final scene
triumphantly pulls together the novel's dominant themes. I laughed,
I cried, I turned the last page fully satisfied."--Rebecca
Steinitz, Boston Globe"A sprawling book, but too intimate to be
considered an epic . . . Each of these characters--and indeed the
doting spouses, or abusive girlfriends, or foul-mouthed school
chums, or lecherous preachers, or the rest of the human
parade--feels specific, and vibrant, and not quite complete,
insofar as the best fictional characters remain as elusive and
surprising as real people are. This is a feat; the whole book is .
. . Evaristo is a gifted portraitist, and you marvel at both the
people she conjures and the unexpected way she reveals them to you
. . . Yes, prizes are silly. But sometimes they're
deserved."--Rumaan Alam, New Republic"[Girl, Woman, Other is] about
almost everything. Politics, parenthood, sexuality, racism and
colorism, immigration, domestic violence, infidelity, friendship,
love, all the ways we misunderstand each other, the way life
surprises us with its unfolding. This is a partial list . . .
Bernardine is here to turn on the lights, give you your money's
worth, and let you decide for yourself."--Marion Winik, Minneapolis
Star-Tribune"Deserves every accolade, and more . . . A creative and
technical marvel--a sprawling, unpunctuated, and improbably joyful
account of twelve interconnected characters in modern-day Britain .
. . A book so bursting with wit, empathy, and insight, its
clear-eyed reflections on race and feminism hardly ever feel like
polemics; there's too much pure, vivid life on every
page."--Entertainment Weekly"[Evaristo] is a master at parsing out
individual voices while also collaging them into a beautiful
chorus, exploring the ways identities and people's lives
intersect."--Katie Yee, Literary Hub"Compulsively readable . . .
There's something truly pleasurable to watching a virtuoso at work,
and Evaristo's ability to switch between voices, between places,
and between moods brings to mind an extraordinary conductor and her
orchestra."--Paris Review"Girl, Woman, Other changed my
thinking."--Tom Stoppard, Times Literary Supplement"Not just one of
my favorite books of this year, but one of the most insightful
books I've ever had the pleasure of reading . . . In this inspired
piece of writing, Evaristo examines the realities and complexities
of womanhood in the UK."--Nicola Sturgeon, Guardian"Look no further
than Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other for the most
distinctive novel of the year . . . Superlatives pale in the shadow
of the monumental achievement of Girl, Woman, Other. Few adjectives
suffice. It's hard not to overpraise this brilliant novel.
Evaristo's verbal acrobatics do things language shouldn't be able
to do. It's a Cirque du Soleil of fiction. Readers should put down
whatever book they're reading and immerse themselves in this one.
Bernardine Evaristo is the writer of the year. Girl, Woman, Other
is the book of the decade."--Washington Independent Review of
Books"The novel flows seamlessly, like water, from thought to
thought, character to character . . . Eminently readable and
emotionally intense."--New York Journal of Books"Magnificent . . .
As she creates a space for immigrants and the children of
immigrants to tell their stories, Evaristo explores a range of
topics both contemporary and timeless. There is room for everyone
to find a home in this extraordinary novel. Beautiful and
necessary."--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"Evaristo beguiles with
her exceptional depictions of a range of experiences of black
British women . . . A stunning powerhouse of vibrant characters and
heartbreaks."--Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Courageous . . .
Hearing from mothers and their children, teachers and their
students across generations, readers might expect that they'll get
to see just what these characters can't know about one another, but
they won't imagine the dazzling specificities nor the unspooling
dramas; they will be entertained, educated, and riveted."--Booklist
(starred review)"Girl, Woman, Other, the intermingling stories of
generations of black British women told in a gloriously rich and
readable free verse, will surely be seen as a landmark in British
fiction."--Guardian"In Girl, Woman, Other, Evaristo adopts an even
bigger canvas, with a sparkling new novel of interconnected stories
. . . In Evaristo's eighth book she continues to expand and enhance
our literary canon. If you want to understand modern day Britain,
this is the writer to read."--New Statesman"Brims with vitality . .
. The form [Evaristo] chooses here is breezily dismissive of
convention. The flow of this prose-poetry hybrid feels absolutely
right, with the pace and layout of words matched to the lilt and
intonation of the characters' voices . . . She captures the shared
experience that make us, as she puts it in her dedication, 'members
of the human family.'"--Financial Times"The voices of black women
come to the fore in a swirl of interrelated stories that cover the
past century of British life. Wide-ranging, witty and wise, it's a
book that does new things with the novel form."--Sunday Times"This
masterful novel is a choral love song to black womanhood."--Elle
(UK)"Evaristo is known for narratives that weave through time and
place with crackling originality. Girl, Woman, Other is no
exception."--Vogue"Ambitious, flowing and all-encompassing,
[Evaristo] jumps from life to life weaving together personal tales
and voices in an offbeat narrative that'll leave your mind in an
invigorated whirl. This is an exceptional book that unites poetry,
social history, women's voices and beyond. You have to order it
right now in fact."--Stylist"Spanning a century and following the
intertwined lives of twelve people, this is a paean to what it
means to be black, British and female. Evaristo's prose hums with
life as characters seem to step off the page fully formed. At turns
funny and sad, tender and true, this book deserves to win
awards."--Red"Marvelous . . . [The characters] sing off the page as
they negotiate their own way of being through the prisms of race
and gender. In prose that defies many of the rules of punctuation,
and feels all the more immediate for it . . . Summons up a
limitless canvas of black female experience that's by turns funny,
acutely observed and heart-snagging. Terrific."--Metro"A
magnificent read from a writer with a gift for
humanity."--Observer"Beautiful, hilarious and moving homage to what
it means to be black and British. Girl, Woman, Other celebrates the
rich variety of black women across
generations."--Refinery29"Bernardine Evaristo can take any story
from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life."--Ali
Smith, author of Spring"There is an astonishing uniqueness to
Bernardine Evaristo's writing, but especially showcased in Girl,
Woman, Other. How she can speak through twelve different people and
give them each such distinct and vibrant voices is astonishing. I
loved it. So much."--Candice Carty-Williams, author of
Queenie"Hilarious, heart-breaking, and honest. Generations of women
and the people they have loved and unloved--the complexities of
race, sex, gender, politics, friendship, love, fear and regret. The
complications of success, the difficulties of intimacy. I truly
haven't enjoyed reading a book in so long."--Warsan Shire, author
of Teaching My Grandmother How to Give Birth"Bernardine Evaristo's
books are always exciting, always subversive, a reminder of the
boundless possibilities of literature and the great worth in
reaching for them. Her body of work is incredible."--Diana Evans,
author of Ordinary People"Once again, Bernardine Evaristo reminds
us she is one of Britain's best writers, an iconic and unique
voice, filled with warmth, subtly and humanity. Girl, Woman, Other
is an exceptional work, presenting an alternative history of
Britain and a dissection of modern Britain that is witty,
exhilarating and wise."--Nikesh Shukla, author and editor of The
Good Immigrant"Bernardine Evaristo is without doubt one of the most
important voices in contemporary British literature. Her phenomenal
writing gets at the heart of what affects and concerns us most in
these times."--Jacob Ross, author of The Bone Readers"Girl, Woman,
Other is brilliant. I feel like a ghost walking in and out and in
again on different people's lives, different others. Some I feel
close to, some I feel I must have met and some are so 'other' that
I have to stretch myself to see them. Mind expanding."--Philippa
Perry, author of How To Be a Parent"Bernardine Evaristo is one of
those writers who should be read by everyone, everywhere. Her tales
marry down-to-earth characters with engrossing storylines about the
UK today."--Elif Shafak, author of Three Daughters of
Eve"Bernardine Evaristo is the most daring, ambitious, imaginative
and innovative of writers, and Girl, Woman, Other is a fantastic
novel that takes fiction and black women's stories into new
directions."--Inua Ellams, author of The Half God of Rainfall"For a
fresh and inspiring take on writing about the African diaspora,
there's nothing like a new book by Bernardine Evaristo. Somehow she
does it every time!"--Margaret Busby, editor of Daughters of Africa
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