Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo was the fourth of eight children born to Jacqueline Brinkworth, a British woman, and Julius Evaristo, a Nigerian man who immigrated to the United Kingdom after WWII. When Evaristo was 13 years old, she joined the Greenwich Young People’s Theater, which launched her into a lifelong dedication to the humanities. Her career has focused on the theater, organizing in support of Black artists, and writing. In 1982, she co-founded the Theater of Black Women, the UK’s first all-female, all-Black company. She also organized the first Black British writing conference and Black British theater conference in the 1990s, and, more recently, founded the Royal Society of Literature’s Scriptorium Award, which supports emerging British writers. As an author, playwright, and poet, Evaristo has penned seven plays; written or edited 10 collections of poetry, novels, and works of nonfiction; and generated dozens of short stories and essays. In addition to a BA degree from the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, Evaristo holds a PhD in creative writing from the University of London. She has received dozens of fellowships, awards, and recognitions for her academic and literary work, including an Order of the British Empire (awarded in 2020), a Booker Prize (in 2019, for her novel, Girl, Woman, Other), and she became President of the British Royal Society of Literature in 2022, the second woman and the first Black person to hold that role. In addition to her writing and advocacy work, Evaristo also teaches creative writing at Brunel University in London.