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Winner of the Booker Prize 2019.
Teeming with energy, humour and heart, a love song to black Britain told by twelve very different people.
Grace is a Victorian orphan dreaming of the mysterious African father she will never meet.
Winsome is a young Windrush bride, recently arrived from Barbados.
Amma is the fierce queen of her 1980s squatters' palace.
Morgan, who used to be Megan, is blowing up on social media, the newest activist-influencer on the block.
Twelve very different people, mostly black and female, more than a hundred years of change, and one sweeping, vibrant, glorious portrait of contemporary Britain. Bernardine Evaristo presents a gloriously new kind of history for this old country: ever-dynamic, ever-expanding and utterly irresistible.
Girl, Woman, Other comprises the life histories and current travails of a daisy-chain of connected women, mostly of African extraction. Amma, a lesbian playwright in mid-life whose star is finally rising, used to work with Dominique until Dom met Nzira and went to live on a women’s commune in America; her best friend at school was Shirley, who her current artistic circle considers dull; her daughter, courtesy of a gay sperm donor, is called Yazz. These characters lead in turn to Bibi, who is vividly trans and butch Megan, who falls for her; so it goes on.
Author: Bernardine Evaristo
Paperback Published 3 March 2020 400 pages
Read and Recommended by Hendri
"Bernardine Evaristo's Man Booker Prize-winning book, "Girl, Woman, Other," is such an electrifying read for everyone who loves the creative invention of language. Combining the poetry and fiction style, Evanristo brings twelve very different black women and queer people, who attempt to understand themselves in relation to dynamic Britain. Meet Amma, an artist who is now feeling baffled when witnessing the fruits of her artistic labour, and Yazz, who is a university student getting caught with the contemporary feminist languages, such as intersectionality. Also, meet Morgan, who used to be Megan, is chronicling her childhood and struggles in finding a language to describe herself who preferred trousers over dresses in the 1990s. Reading this book is like visiting a restaurant with multiple different dishes with different tastes that will keep you longing for more..."