Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo's official website


Bernardine Evaristo is an Anglo-Nigerian Londoner. Bernardine's verse novel LARA was published by Bloodaxe Books on the 29th October 2009. Based on her family history it spans 150 years, seven generations and five countries of origin: England, Nigeria, Ireland, Germany and Brazil. Originally published in 1997, it has been revised and expanded by a third.

Her first fully-prose novel BLONDE ROOTS was published by Penguin UK in August 2008. (USA 2009) It is a slavery story with a difference: Africans enslave Europeans over a four hundred year period. The protagonist is a white woman from Europa who lives out her adult life as a slave in the New World. Satirical, tragic, imaginative - it offers a fresh perspective on slavery. The US paperback version is published January 5th, 2010.

Forthcoming Books
Her novella HELLO MUM will be published by Penguin, March 4th, 2010.
This book looks at teenage knife crime in the UK.

Other Books
Her novel-in-verse THE EMPEROR'S BABE (Penguin 2001) is the ground-breaking story of a girl of Sudanese parents who grows up in Roman London 1800 years ago.

Her novel-with-verse SOUL TOURISTS (Penguin 2005) is a car journey across Europe and into black European history featuring many ghosts of colour from Europe's history including Pushkin, Alessandro dei Medici and the Chevalier de St.Georges.

She has written drama and fiction for BBC Radio 4, is a literary critic for national British newspapers and is co-editor with novelist Maggie Gee of the British Council anthology NW15 (Granta 2007). She has undertaken over fifty international writers’ tours, and held several writers’ residencies and visiting professorships worldwide.

Her awards include the BT Emma Best Book Award, Arts Council Writers’ Award and a NESTA Fellowship. She is a former Chair of the Poetry Society of Great Britain and a judge on several literary awards. In 2004 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and in 2006 a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Island of Abraham (1994) was her first publication, inspired in part by her interest in African history and a trip to Madagascar.

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