British-Nigerian writer, Bernadine Evaristo, recently spoke to BBC’s “Focus on Africa” about the British publishing industry, African writers, visiting Nigeria for the first time, womanhood, and othering in terms of race, sexuality, class and immigration status.
Her book, “Girl, Woman, Other,” which recently won the 2019 Booker Prize, explores the theme of living the modern life as a woman of colour, while also looking at other identifiers, such as being an immigrant or being on the queer spectrum.
Explaining her focus on ‘othering’ in her book, Evaristo shared: “It’s about womanhood. It’s about the transition from womanhood to adulthood and it’s about the ways in which we are othered as women of color in certain societies, in the UK for example.”
She goes on to add that, “The women in the book are othered in terms of their sexuality because there are characters on the queer spectrum in the book…they’re a diverse group of women. There’s no sort of homogeneity among them at all.”
Although the Booker Prize forbids that the award be given to more than one individual, the committee reportedly felt that two novels were deserving of this year’s prize.
While Evaristo made history as the first ever Black woman to win the prize, many were not pleased that she had to share the prize with Canadian author, Margaret Atwood.
Although “Girl, Woman, Other” is Evaristo’s eighth book, this is the first time her work has been seriously considered for the prize.
The interviewer asks her what she feels needs to be done further in the publishing world to ensure that the stories of Black women writers are recognized and talked about much more.
Evaristo responds by saying that the issue is with the publishing industry and who gets to become a publisher in what is an admittedly “White industry”.
At the end of the interview, Evaristo spoke about the brilliance of the current crop of African authors and the importance of the Caine Prize for African Fiction.
By: The Arubayi Keme