32 Facts About Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo is a longstanding advocate for the inclusion of writers and artists of colour.

Bernardine Evaristo co-founded Spread the Word writer development agency with Ruth Borthwick and Britain's first black women's theatre company, Theatre of Black Women.

Bernardine Evaristo organised Britain's first major black theatre conference, Future Histories, for the Black Theatre Forum, at the Royal Festival Hall, and Britain's first major conference on black British writing, Tracing Paper at the Museum of London.

Bernardine Evaristo has received more than 77 honours, awards, fellowships, nominations and other tokens of recognition.

Bernardine Evaristo was Vice-Chair of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2020 she became a lifetime vice president, before becoming president.

Bernardine Evaristo was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's 2009 Birthday Honours, and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the Queen's 2020 Birthday Honours, both for services to literature.

Bernardine Evaristo was raised in Woolwich, the fourth of eight children born to an English mother, Jacqueline M Brinkworth, of English, Irish and German heritage, who was a schoolteacher, and a Nigerian father, Julius Taiwo Bayomi Evaristo, known as Danny, born in British Cameroon, raised in Nigeria, who migrated to Britain in 1949 and became a welder and the first black councillor in the Borough of Greenwich, for the Labour Party.

Bernardine Evaristo's paternal grandfather, Gregorio Bankole Evaristo, was a Yoruba Aguda who sailed from Brazil to Nigeria.

Bernardine Evaristo continued further education at Goldsmiths College, University of London, receiving her doctorate in creative writing in 2013.

Bernardine Evaristo's first book to be published was a 1994 collection of poems called Island of Abraham.

Bernardine Evaristo went on to become the author of two non-fiction books, and eight books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora.

Bernardine Evaristo's fourth book, Soul Tourists, is an experimental novel about a mismatched couple driving across Europe to the Middle East, which featured ghosts of real figures of colour from European history.

Bernardine Evaristo's novel Blonde Roots is a satire that inverts the history of the transatlantic slave trade and replaces it with a universe where Africans enslave Europeans.

Bernardine Evaristo's novel Girl, Woman, Other is an innovative polyvocal "fusion fiction" about 12 primarily black British women.

In 2020, Bernardine Evaristo won the British Book Awards: Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year, the Indie Book Award for Fiction.

In June 2020, Bernardine Evaristo became the first woman with Black heritage and the first British writer with Black heritage to reach number one in the UK paperback fiction charts, where she held the top spot for five weeks and spent 44 weeks in the Top 10.

Bernardine Evaristo was included on the Powerlist 2021, the 14th edition of the annual Powerlist recognising the United Kingdom's most influential people of African or African Caribbean heritage.

Bernardine Evaristo's writing includes short fiction, drama, poetry, essays, literary criticism, and projects for stage and radio.

Bernardine Evaristo offers a personal survey of the representation of the art of British women of colour in the context of the gallery's forthcoming major rehang.

In 2020 Bernardine Evaristo collaborated with Valentino on their Collezione Milano collection, writing poetic text to accompany photographs of the collection by the photographer Liz Johnson Artur, published as a coffee-table book.

Bernardine Evaristo has written many articles, essays, fictions and book reviews for publications including: The Times, Vanity Fair, The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar UK, The Times Literary Supplement, Conde Naste Traveller, Wasafiri, and the New Statesman.

Bernardine Evaristo is a contributor to New Daughters of Africa: An international anthology of writing by women of African descent, edited by Margaret Busby.

Bernardine Evaristo was editor of FrontSeat intercultural magazine in the 1990s, and one of the editors of Black Women Talk Poetry anthology, Britain's first such substantial anthology, featuring among its 20 poets Jackie Kay, Dorothea Smartt and Adjoa Andoh.

In October 2020, it was announced that Bernardine Evaristo is curating a new book series with Hamish Hamilton at Penguin Random House publishers, "Black Britain: Writing Back", which involves bringing back into print and circulation books from the past.

Bernardine Evaristo has given many other interviews, including for HARDtalk, with Stephen Shakur and This Cultural Life, with John Wilson.

Bernardine Evaristo was the subject of Profile and Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio 4, interviewed by Lauren Laverne, in 2020.

Bernardine Evaristo taught the University of East Anglia-Guardian "How to Tell a Story" course for four seasons in London up until 2015.

Bernardine Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, having taught at the university since 2011.

Bernardine Evaristo chaired the 32nd and 33rd British Council Berlin Literature Seminar in 2017 and 2018.

In 2006, Bernardine Evaristo initiated an Arts Council-funded report delivered by Spread the Word writer development agency into why black and Asian poets were not getting published in the UK, which revealed that less than 1 per cent of all published poetry is by poets of colour.

Bernardine Evaristo has served on councils and advisory committees for various organisations including the Council of the Royal Society of Literature since 2017, the Arts Council of England, the London Arts Board, the British Council Literature Advisory Panel, the Society of Authors, the Poetry Society and Wasafiri international literature magazine.

Bernardine Evaristo is married to writer David Shannon, whom she met in 2006, and whose debut novel was launched in March 2021.