BERNARDINE EVARISTO

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Bernardine Evaristo is a British writer and long-time advocate for diversity and inclusion in literature and the arts. Her work spans fiction, verse fiction, poetry, essays, and criticism, and engages with the histories and cultures of the African diaspora.

Born in 1959 in Woolwich, in south-east London, to an English mother and a Nigerian father, she studied at Eltham Hill School, the Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, and later at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she completed a PhD in Creative Writing. During her teenage years, she was involved in Greenwich Young People’s Theatre, an experience that contributed to her early engagement with the arts. Evaristo currently teaches Creative Writing at Brunel University of London.

Her works have been translated into roughly forty languages and have received numerous international distinctions, including the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other (2019), making her the first Black woman to win the award.

Personal website

https://bevaristo.com/

Bernardine Evaristo webpage on the Black British Women Writers website

maintained by Elisabeth Bekers

https://clic.research.vub.be/bernardine-evaristo

Selected honours and awards

• 2025 — Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award 
• 2020 — Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE)  
• 2020 — The British Book Awards, Author of the Year
• 2020 — The British Book Awards, Fiction Book of the Year, for Girl, Woman, Other
• 2019 — Booker Prize, for Girl, Woman, Other (joint winner with Margaret Atwood)
• 2014 — Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize