Bernardine Evaristo came to popular attention when her novel Girl, Woman, Other won the Booker Prize in 2019. She was of course joint winner alongside Margaret Atwood (for The Testaments) but Atwood had won the prize before (for The Blind Assassin, 2000) whereas Evaristo – somewhat staggeringly – was the first black woman and also the first black British person to win the prize in its 50 year history. As she points out in this lively and important memoir, although her life changed overnight, she was far from an overnight success.
Her story up until this point is worth reading not just because it is an entertaining account of a noteworthy life, but because she is unfailingly generous in delineating how she became herself. I have read few memoirs where the author demonstrates so explicitly how they arrived at their current success. This kind of self-actualisation is always hard-won and Evaristo had – as she points out – no privilege to draw on in her ascent to become a successful, happy and recognised woman of letters.
