British writer Bernardine Evaristo is the author of ten books and numerous writings that span the genres of fiction, verse fiction, short fiction, non-fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism, journalism, and radio and theatre drama. Her writing and projects are based around her interest in the African diaspora. Her first non-fiction book is a memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (2021).

Bernardine’s novel Girl, Woman, Other won the Booker Prize 2019.  The novel also won many other prizes including the British Book Award’s Fiction Book of the Year & Author of the Year, and the Indie Book Award for Fiction. It was an international bestseller and a #1 Sunday Times bestseller for five weeks, the first woman of colour to achieve this position in the paperback fiction chart; and it spent 44 weeks in the Top 10. Her books have been translated into c40 languages.

In 2025 she received the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a one-off literary honour marking 30 years of the Women’s Prize for Fiction. This award was created “for a living female writer in recognition of her body of work, her significant contribution to literature, and her strong advocacy for women. Authors who had been previously longlisted, shortlisted or won the Women’s Prize for Fiction over the past three decades, and had published a minimum of five books, were eligible for the award”.

She has been a staunch and longstanding activist and advocate for inclusion in literature and the arts, initiating several successful schemes to ensure increased representation, most recently, the RSL Pioneer Prize and the RSL Scriptorium Awards.

Her second non-fiction book, Look Again: Feminism (Tate Galleries/Tate Publishing 2021) is a survey of the representation of women of colour in British art, responding to a major rehang of the galleries in Tate Britain, the National Collection of British Art, launched in 2023. In 2020 she collaborated with Pierpaolo Piccioli, Creative Director of Valentino, on his Collezione Milano collection, writing poetic text to accompany photographs of the collection by the photographer Liz Johnson Artur. This was published as a coffee table book – Collezione Milano (Rizzoli, 2021). She has written over twenty book introductions since 2020, including for the reissue of Beloved by Toni Morrison (Vintage, Penguin/Random House, 2022) and For Coloured Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange (Faber, 2025).

Her verse novel The Emperor’s Babe was adapted into a BBC Radio 4 play in 2013 and her novella Hello Mum adapted as a BBC Radio 4 play in 2012. In 2024, her novel Mr Loverman, adapted by Nathaniel Price, was broadcast as an eight-part BBC One television series with Fable Pictures – with all episodes available on BBC iPlayer. The series won two television BAFTAS 2025 for actors Lennie James and Ariyon Bakare and other honours. Other works are in development for screen and theatre.

In 2025 the BBC published some of her radio writings and book adaptatations: Bernardine Evaristo: A BBC Collection.(Drama)

She has been widely featured in the UK and international media. She has been the subject of two documentary series: The Southbank Show, with Melvyn Bragg (Sky Arts TV, 2020) and Imagine, with Alan Yentob (BBC TV, 2021), and she has given hundreds of interviews including for HARDtalk, with Stephen Shakur (BBC World, 2020) and This Cultural Life, with John Wilson (BBC4, November 2021). She was also the subject of then flagship programme, Profile (BBC R4, 2019) and Desert Island Discs (BBC R4, 2020) interviewed by Lauren Laverne.  In 2015 she wrote and presented a two-part BBC Radio 4 documentary called Fiery Inspiration: Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement. Her many podcast appearances include being interviewed by the following hosts on their podcasts: Adwoa Aboah, Samira Ahmed, Elizabeth Day, Grace Dent, Annie MacManus (Annie Mac), Graham Norton, James O’Brien, Natalie Portman, Jay Rayner, Simon Savidge and Jeremy Vine. In 2015 she wrote and presented a two-part BBC Radio 4 documentary called Fiery Inspiration: Amiri Baraka and the Black Arts Movement.

She was a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 4’s essay series, A Point of View, writing and presenting her opinion on topical subjects. She guest-edited the UK Sunday Times Style magazine in July 2020 with a black women & womxn take-over, and she has guest-edited several other publications. Her literary criticism and other writings have appeared in many national newspapers and magazines including the Guardian, Times Literary Supplement, Observer, Times, British Vogue, Independent, New Statesman, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Conde Nast Traveller. Bernardine has written many book introductions since 2019. She has also chaired and judged many literary awards.

She has edited several publications and from 2021 curated the Black Britain: Writing Back book series with Penguin UK, re-publishing thirteen books that had been out of circulation.

Bernardine was the 2023-2024 Literature Mentor for the Rolex Mentor & Protege Arts Initiative (est. 2002), mentoring the Ghanaian novelist, Ayesha Harruna Attah.
(Photo: research trip for Ayesha to Egypt, 2024)

Since 1996 she has accepted numerous invitations to undertake international visits and tours as a writer. She gives readings, talks, delivers keynotes, chairs panels and delivers creative writing activities and courses. In 2019 she was the inaugural Woolwich Laureate, appointed by the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival.

You can find Bernardine’s honours here.

Lifelong fellowships include: Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, 2004; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, 2006; Honorary Fellow of the English Association, 2017; Fellow of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, 2018 (President 2020-2024), succeeding Sir Richard Eyre; Honorary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford University, 2020; and an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2021.

Bernardine joined the governing Council of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) in 2016, was Vice Chair from 2017-2020, became a lifetime Vice President in 2020, and was elected its 19th President for four years from 2022-2025. At the end of her term, she was appointed President Emerita.

She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University of London and the Visiting Professor of Creative Media, Oxford University 2025/6.

Personal
Bernardine Evaristo was born the fourth of eight children, in Woolwich, south east London, to an English mother (of English, Irish and German heritage) and a Nigerian father (of Nigerian and Brazilian heritage). Her father was a welder and local Labour councillor; her mother was a schoolteacher. She was educated at Eltham Hill Girls’ Grammar School, the Rose Bruford College of Speech & Drama, and Goldsmiths, University of London, where she earned her PhD  (Creative Writing). She spent her teenage years at Greenwich Young People’s Theatre, which was where she first became involved in the arts.

She lives in London with her husband.