Manifesto

Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo is an English author and Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University of London. She is Visiting Professor of Creative Media 2025/6 at the University of Oxford. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019 alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, making her the first black woman to win the Booker. The novel won many other awards including two British Book awards. In 2025, Evaristo was selected from among all previous Women's Prize for Fiction winners and nominees as the recipient of the Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a one-off literary honour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Women's Prize for Fiction. She served for four years as President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and the first Black or Asian person to hold the role since it was founded in 1820. She was elected President Emerita once her tenure was completed in 2025.