Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, (born 28 May 1959), is a British author and academic. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win the Booker. Evaristo is a longstanding advocate for the inclusion of writers and artists of colour. She founded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2012 and initiated The Complete Works poetry mentoring scheme in 2007. She co-founded Spread the Word writer development agency with Ruth Borthwick (1995–present) and Britain's first black women's theatre company (1982–1988), Theatre of Black Women. She organised Britain's first major black theatre conference, Future Histories, for the Black Theatre Forum, (1995) at the Royal Festival Hall, and Britain's first major conference on black British writing, Tracing Paper (1997) at the Museum of London. Evaristo is a lifetime Honorary Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford and International Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. In 2021 she succeeded Sir Richard Eyre as President of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. She was Vice-Chair of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) and …
Bernardine Evaristo
Author details
- Aliases:
-
Bernardine Evaristo, Бернардіна Еварісто
- Born:
- May 28, 1959
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Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, (born 28 May 1959), is a British author and academic. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win the Booker. Evaristo is a longstanding advocate for the inclusion of writers and artists of colour. She founded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2012 and initiated The Complete Works poetry mentoring scheme in 2007. She co-founded Spread the Word writer development agency with Ruth Borthwick (1995–present) and Britain's first black women's theatre company (1982–1988), Theatre of Black Women. She organised Britain's first major black theatre conference, Future Histories, for the Black Theatre Forum, (1995) at the Royal Festival Hall, and Britain's first major conference on black British writing, Tracing Paper (1997) at the Museum of London. Evaristo is a lifetime Honorary Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford and International Honorary Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. In 2021 she succeeded Sir Richard Eyre as President of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance. She was Vice-Chair of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) and in 2020 she became a lifetime Vice President, before becoming President of the Royal Society of Literature (2022–2026). She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen's 2009 Birthday Honours, and an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's 2020 Birthday Honours, both for services to literature.
