Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S3 Ep14: Live Bookshelfie: Bernardine Evaristo

Episode Date: September 13, 2021

Recorded in front of a live audience with guest presenter Pandora Sykes, 2021 Women's Prize Chair of Judges Bernardine Evaristo shares the five books that have shaped her as a person and as a writer.   Bernardine Evaristo is an award-winning, number one bestselling writer, a Professor of Creative Writing and also an activist who endlessly campaigns for inclusivity within the publishing industry.   In 2019, she became the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize with her eighth book, Girl, Woman, Other. The same novel also earned her a spot on the Women’s Prize shortlist, and this year, she’s on the other side of the fence as Chair of Judges. Bernardine’s next book, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up, an urgent and powerful account of staying true to yourself and to your vision, comes out in October – pre-order it here. Pandora Sykes is a journalist, broadcaster and writer, plus the co-creator and co-host of the No.1 women’s podcast, The High Low. Pandora also hosts Doing It Right and the 8-part BBC Radio 4 docu-series, Pieces of Britney.   Bernardine’s book choices are:  ** The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison ** Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde ** The Bone People by Keri Hulme ** The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta ** Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston Every week, join journalist and author Yomi Agedoke, and inspirational guests, including Elizabeth Day, Sara Pascoe and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie as they celebrate the best books written by women. The Women’s Prize for Fiction is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and has been running for over 25 years, and this series will offer unique access to the shortlisted authors and the 2021 Prize winner.  Produced by Bird Lime Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

With thanks to Bailey's, this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast, celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Pandora Sykes, your guest presenter for this very special episode of the Women's Prize podcast. You've joined me for a live bookshelfy, where one woman will share the story of her life through books by five other brilliant women. Hi everybody, welcome to our very special live recording of the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. I'm journalist and broadcaster Pandora Sykes and I am joined in Bedford Square Gardens by a fantastic audience and a fabulous guest. If you would like to share the event online, please use the hashtag

Women's Prize. Bernadine Everisto is an award-winning number one best-selling writer, a professor of creative writing and an activist who endlessly campaigns for inclusivity within the publishing industry. In 2019, she became the first black woman to win the Booker Prize with her eighth book, the polyphonic novel, Girl, Woman, Other. The same novel also earned for a spot

on the women's prize shortlist, and this year she's on the other side of the fence as the chair of judges. Bernardine's next book, Manifesto on Never Giving Up, an urgent and powerful account of staying true to yourself and to your vision, comes out next month. Welcome to the podcast, Bernadine.

Hi, good to be here. I'm so glad that we have this gorgeous weather today. I have an absurd belief in pathetic fallacy, so I'd like to believe this is for you and your literature that you brought it. Fantastic. And this is my first live event since March 2020. So it's really unusual seeing actual people sitting in front of me, with breathing, smelling, smiling, smiling.

It's really surreal, isn't it? What was it like chairing the Women's Prize judging panel this year? Has there been endless Zooms? Actually, we met in person for most of it. So it was fine, yeah, because there were the various lockdowns. And so we were able to meet and thrash out our arguments and talk about the books that we liked and so on. She says not giving anything away.

Is there lots of arguing? Because when I talk about books with friends, there is always that someone going, oh, I just couldn't get on with it. And you're saying, you mad, it's incredible. It's the best thing I've read this year. Does it get quite heated? Well, the thing is, you know,

I've been teaching creative writing for a long time, and we talk about books all the time. And I know that there is never a single book that everybody feels the same about. So it's the same when you're judging a prize. People are bringing all kinds of things to the judging process, including their personal tastes.

So yes, we had lively debate. Very diplomatic. The 2021 Women's Prize winner is announced this week, and you are being incredibly careful. I told you how excited I was to see he you've picked, and you barely even allowed to nod. You were so terrified to giving anything away. What are you and your fellow judges looking for?

Well, you'll know by now, weren't you? What have you been looking for in the winning book? Well, I think the prize is there to, pick books that are original, accessible and excellent. So those are the three main criteria. And then, of course, we bring our own expectations to our judging process. You know, for example, some people might want to be entertained, some people might want to read books that are engaging with some of the big issues of the day and so on. So it's, there is such a variety of opinion and expectation, I would say.

So it's hard to boil it down to anything other than what the prize itself stands for. We're here today to talk about your favorite books. Have you always been a big reader? Yes. I started reading as soon as I could independently. And so reading has been part of my life since I was, I don't know, four or five. And I used to go down to the local library in Woolwich, where I grew up every Saturday, and pick up a number of books. I think it was probably two or three.

read them during the course of the week and then take them back. I think reading, in a sense, rescued my childhood because there wasn't a lot to do. We didn't have much money. And so I needed to find a way to entertain myself and I did that through reading books.

And also, because I grew up in the 60s and 70s, television was really limited then. There was no such thing called the internet. Mobile phones did not exist. phones were very immobile, you know, stuck to the wall, actually, in the 60s, literally stuck to the wall. So what did you do with your time?

You played with your siblings. I come from a family of eight. But for me, reading was where I went on my adventures. And so I'm really grateful to have grown up at that time, actually, because literally there were no distractions. I didn't have to struggle with the internet or social media and how I was presenting myself publicly. And then my reading suffering as a result.

And if I hadn't have been a reader, I wouldn't have been a writer. I wouldn't have become a writer. Let's get on to your favourite books. Your first bookshelfy book is The Bluest Eye by Tony Morrison. The Bluest Eye is Tony Morrison's heartbreaking and powerful first novel, published in 1970. Set in Lorraine, Ohio, it tells the story of Bacola Breedlove,

who prays for her eyes to turn blue so that she will be as beautiful and beloved as all the blonde blue-eyed children in America. It's a book about race relations, family and trauma. What did you love about this book? So Tony Morrison has consistently been my favourite author ever since I first read that book. And she is such a beautiful writer,

such a deep and complex writer. And she just evokes such amazing worlds through her fiction and this was my introduction to her work and growing up, as I did in the 60s and 70s, there were no books by or about black writers in Britain. So black women did not feature, black girls did not feature in the fiction of my country. And so when I read this book, even though it was set in America,

and my life is very different to the world that's described in that book, I saw the story of a black girl. And it was just incredible to see that. was an incredible validation. And also, she was a black girl who had been told she was ugly. And I have to say, especially at that time, most black children growing up

in majority white societies were not seen as beautiful, even though this was before Benetton even, let alone Edward Denhamful and Vogue in the way in which he's represented such a wide range of womanhood. So this was a time when the ideal of beauty was blonde and blue eyes.

And so this is a little girl who's told she's, ugly and she's longing to have blue eyes and she's got this fantasy that she's got blonde hair and blue eyes. And so it's a very touching book and she's actually living in a really difficult family situation.

She loses her family essentially and she's kind of spurned by people because she's not considered beautiful. And yeah, Tony Morrison is a writer who I think engages the intellect and the emotions and this was my introduction to

her work. So it meant a lot to me this book. How old were you when you read it? I was probably about 22, I would say, yeah. What was your childhood like? You talk about how when you were growing up, there weren't any books about black girls in London. Did you look to books by American authors, or did you just find that you were only reading stories of white children?

They were only, they were white books, you know. And I think when you're young, you don't realize that. You know, you're not, as a six-year-old, you're not thinking I want to see myself represented in the fiction of my country. You know, you're just reading the stories and enjoying them for what they are. It was only, as I got older,

you know, by the time I was becoming politicized, feminist, you know, growing into my black identity in my late teens, that I realized that my education had been so white. You know, and we are talking about a very long time ago, and, you know, there's always a context for this, but at the same time, it's still a bit like that today.

So that's still a problem. But, yeah, I then realized what I had been missing in my childhood. But also my father was Nigerian, my mother, white English. But he didn't pass on his culture. So there was nothing in my childhood that really told me that being a person of color was a good thing. Because it was a very racist society in 60s and 70s, legally racist until 1976, actually. So, yeah, so that absence did not have. help build my identity as a young woman. I had to

start afresh and Tony Morrison was one of the writers who helped me do that. Why is representation in fiction so important particularly for children, do you think? I think children need to see themselves. You know, they need to, you know, fiction needs to be a mirror of themselves in some way and if you don't have, if you have that, you know, if you feel that children who look like you are present in in the fiction that you're reading as a child,

you probably don't even notice that that's what's happening. But if you don't see it, then I think it can affect your self-image and your self-esteem. I have a little relative who, when she was seven years old, she said to me, oh, I really like your hair, you've got good hair, because my hair's quite loose, and her hair's much tighter, and she's Nigerian, very Nigerian origin. And I just felt heartbroken because I thought this is what the girl said in my childhood.

And this is somebody a couple of years ago saying to me, you know, and I just thought she needed. And so I then had to go to America, to be honest, to get the books that present black children in black stories so that she would start to see herself and to start to feel better about who she is in this society. Did you always have ambitions to be a writer? No, I wanted to be an actor.

So I went to a youth theatre from the age of 12, Greenwich Young People's Theatre, now called Tramshed. And that was my introduction to the arts, and I absolutely loved it. I loved that space. I think, when I think back in it, I think it was the youth theatre was where children gathered who probably felt they didn't fit in elsewhere, and you were accepted at the youth theatre.

It was a place where outsiders were accepted. And so I felt very accepted there. And I was the only black girl there for most of my time there, but it wasn't an issue. You know, I never experienced any kind of racism. I felt very, very welcome there. And so then I got into theatre, and then I got into theatre at school

and at the age of 14 I decided I was going to be an actor and that was my first profession. So I went to drama school and then started writing plays because I needed to because there were no plays by or about black women in Britain in the late 70s, early 80s. And so through that I became somebody who was writing. How did you develop your writing?

Do you still feel like you're developing your writing? I do, yeah. I think when you think you've reached a point of arrival, that's probably, you know, when you're going to start to deteriorate creatively. I think you're always, I think you need always to developing your skills. And, you know, as a writer, I have grown as a writer, but with each book I do something differently. And each book has a different ambition for me.

So, yeah, it's an ongoing process for sure. Your second bookshelfy book is Sister Outsider. by Audrey Lord. In this collection of essays and speeches written in the late 70s and early 80s and largely considered her most influential work of nonfiction, particularly in contemporary feminist discourse, Audrey Lord calls for intersectional feminism and supporting women of colour, the importance of using your voice to speak up against injustice, the horror is inflicted by US imperialism and capitalism, and her personal experiences of oppression. Can you tell us a little bit more about this book and why it resonated with you?

Yeah, so I actually brought my original copy, which was the 1984 copy, because I'd met her a few times, which was great. And, you know, Audre Lord didn't have a massive reach, I think, until the Me Too movement a few years ago. And then suddenly a lot of people became very interested in her work. But she meant a lot to me when I was a young woman. I'm just going to read a really brief section from the book. this is the transformation of silence into language and action.

I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. And then she says, what are the words you do not have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own

until you will sicken and die of them still in silence. And that was so potent for my generation to read that because this was, you know, I was very much part of the second wave feminist movement. And there was so many silences in our lives and so many ways in which women had,

and I hate to say even today, have been silenced. And here was this really powerful woman, a generation older than us saying, speak up, say what you need to say. You know, oh, it's going to kill you, right? And I think each generation of women needs to learn that. But for me, reading that gave me

the strength and the power to become somebody who did speak up in my early 20s when I was running theatre of black women and creating plays and being very, very politically engaged. And it was because her generation was saying to us, it, speak up. You know, you have a right to have equal rights in this country, to be taken seriously, to have

equal opportunities. And we as women, whether we're women of colour or not, have that. And sometimes it's still a struggle to achieve that. So, yeah, she was, you know, one of the early trailblazers in terms of, as you said, you know, intersectional feminism. Because she was a lesbian as well, and she was unapologetically black, lesbian, and she would say, you know, she would say, you know, intersectional feminism. And she would say that and she would look at gender and class and sexuality and all those things that weren't being looked at together and feminism at that time was very white i think it's much more

intersectional now which is how it needs to be and so she was a real warrior and you know she led the charge it's incredible how potent those words and her words still are 40 years on her writing on self-care being a political act feels so relevant now when obviously self-care has become a buzzword and you read what she wrote 40 years ago and it just feels so current, so meaningful. She has talked about the devastating impact of overextension, which I think is particularly interesting now for this time

where we use a lot of words to describe various things going on, whether it's the word toxic or the word gaslighting, these words that get bandied around quite a lot. When you read her writing, does it bring you back to the truth of what matters? I feel like she was writing about so many things 40 years ago that people are dissecting now in the mainstream that weren't being dissected in the mainstream.

She's definitely, certainly recently, you know, in the last few years she's got mainstream. I think, as I kind of said, I think the things that she was discussing and the arguments that she was making all those years ago are still as relevant today as they were back then. And it's, you know, talking

about the kind of vocabulary and terminology that's bandied around at the moment and, you know, the idea of people being woke and cancel culture and it just drives me nuts because that those descriptions have been weaponized

basically by not always, by by right wingers, by the right wing media, to turn people against the idea of social progression. And it used to be politically correct was the word, and it was, oh, they're politically correct. What does that mean exactly? Or even the idea of identity politics.

You know, it's like, well, whose identity politics are you talking about? If you're a black person or you're a woman and you're arguing for something, you know, in terms of your race or gender, then it's seen as identity politics. Whereas actually, you know, the white male still establishment, you know, the Eaton elite and so on, they have a very strong identity in this country. But because they are, you know, they have always been there and they are the default.

We are supposed to accept that and not see it through the prism of identity. So I think we're always being assaulted. If you read certain papers and magazines and columnists, they're always attacking, essentially the idea of social progression by banding around these words that have become incredibly weaponised. So language is really important and I think we have to stay vigilant and we have to be critical of this and we have to speak out against it. You co-founded the theatre of black women in the 80s and you've mentioned earlier how you wanted to become an actor before you wanted to become a writer.

Did this book influence you to use your voice? You've mentioned in your 20s how it kind of encouraged you to, in your confidence and to be true to yourself. And in your BBC documentary, you mentioned, which I love, that lots of people say to you come across as very confident. And when watching the documentary, I felt like that. But you said, well, I wasn't always like that. I wasn't like that in my 20s. I had to build it. Did this book help you build that confidence?

I think she did, because she said, speak up. You have a right to be heard and to speak up. I think that in my late teens, early 20s, I was quite shy. Although the funny thing about memory is that people who knew me then say, you weren't shy. I said, no, I was. They said, no, you weren't shy. So who knows, who knows, is memory a fiction or not?

How much of it is just about how we choose to interpret the past. But I have been opening my mouth and, you know, giving my opinion ever since I was in my early 20s and increasingly now I have a much bigger platform for it. In fact, in the last two years, a massive platform for it. And that has been wonderful. But if I had come of age at a time when there were not feminists around writing, if the books that were, you know, the books that I've mentioned

and other books weren't around writing from black women's or women's perspectives, if people like Audra Lord weren't telling us to speak up, If I had ignored feminism, say if they were doing all of that and I had ignored it and the many women have ignored feminism, not wanted to engage with it, then I would not be here before you talking. I would not have written all the books and had the career that I've had because I needed to hear that as a young woman. This podcast is made in partnership with Bailey's Irish Cream.

Bailey's is proudly supporting the women's prize for fiction by helping showcase incredible writing by remarkable women, celebrating their accomplishments and getting more of their books into the hands of more people. Babies is the perfect adult treat, whether in coffee, over ice cream or paired with your favourite book. Enjoying the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast? Share the literary love and be part of the future of the Women's Prize Trust by making a one-off donation to support our important workers to charity. Donations of all sizes help us to continue empowering women, regardless of their age, race, nationality or

background to raise their voice and own their story. Search for Support the Women's Prize to find out more. Your third book is The Bone People by Kerry Hume. This is a novel about the complicated relationships between three outcasts of mixed European and Maori heritage, which won the Booker Prize in 1985. Can you tell us a little bit about this book? Yeah, so this, it did win the Booker Prize, and that's how it came to my attention. I think it was the first Booker Prize book that I read.

Because I hadn't been interested in that prize up to that point, because it just wasn't, the books that seemed to win it weren't the kinds of books that I was interested in reading at that time. And then here was this woman who was part Maori winning it with what was an experimental novel, The Bone People. And I remember the critics were quite damning about it. And I was like, this is outrageous because I think, I think the critics were probably more out of control then

than they are now. now that I think they can be much kinder but then they were really damning about this book and then I read it and I absolutely loved it and every so often I revisit it. It's about this woman who is living a very isolated life, living in a lighthouse

on the coast and it's about her relationship with a seven-year-old mute boy and his father and they're all very unusual characters and she, this woman, woman in Kerouin is a very eccentric individual.

She's unlike any kind of fictional character I'd ever seen before. And I think she was, and I think the author did say she was Lucy based on herself. So it was just this extraordinary novel that was very fragmented and playing around with form and also very poetic, writing this very unusual story about this woman who ends up looking after this seven-year-old mute boy who's washed up by the sea and nobody knows where he comes from and then his father comes into the picture and his father is abusive towards him. And it was just different. Everything about it was different and that was what I was looking for with my writing and it still is.

I like stories that are different. I don't want to read the predictable kinds of stories that are, you know, that actually often do very well in this country. And, you know, with my television entertainment, I like thrillers. I like crime dramas and they're really formulaic. unless they're brilliant, whatever language they're in. But actually, with my fiction, I like really unusual literary fiction. That's really my preference.

She spent 12 years writing The Bone People and more trying to get it published. And when the book was finally taken on, it was by a tiny feminist press in New Zealand, led by three women called Sparrel. And two, out of three of the women, were also of Maori descent. And it wasn't until Sparrel took it to Hodder and Staunton, who published many more copies than they were able to do, that it was brought to the attention of the Booker Prize. You've spoken many times about your frustrations with the publishing industry,

what gets published and by whom. Does stories like this galvanise you? Absolutely. And I think it's really sad, actually, that the publishing industry, although it's changed it very recently, has not included so many diverse authors, you know, authors of colour. and so there have been generations of stories that we haven't heard and I think that's tragic and it's sad

and it's not too late for that to change and certainly in the last few years that started to change but when you hear about the journey the journeys of some of the books that are out there and that do really well eventually it was the same with Ben Ockery's The Famish Road I mean I think he had a hundred rejections or something nobody was interested in it and then it won the Booker Prize

and went out there to readers. And readers, you know, absolutely got the book. Because we have, you know, we do have gatekeepers, obviously. That's who they are in the publishing industry. Who will make the decisions about what they think is good literature and also what they think will sell. And even with Girl Woman Other, right? I mean, I've been with my publisher 20 years,

and so he has published every book that I've produced. But I wonder if that book had gone out to publishers, you know, a few years ago, that might have been easily being rejected. It was only that it did so well and that it won the booker that people then, I think, possibly forget that that might not have been the case because nobody else had written that kind of book before.

And so if you are writing something that's different, that's slightly experimental, it's going to be a harder journey for you and especially a harder journey if you're a person of colour because the publishers will think there is no market, there's no readership, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And often they are wrong about that. You won the man booker in 2019 for Girl, Women, Other, and you mentioned earlier how much your life and your career has changed

in the last two years. What do you think the impact is of that prize on writers? It depends on the writers. You know, Margaret Atwood won it with me for the second time. So she's won it before. I think if you're a writer who, hasn't broken through to the mainstream, then that is definitely what this price does for you. If you are already a celebrated, famous writer, then I think it will have less of an impact

on your career. Certainly for somebody such as myself, after, you know, being a writer for 40 years and publishing books since 1996, the transformation of my career has been incredible. You know, literally overnight, everything changed. And I've thoroughly enjoyed what's happened to me because it has been such a long time coming. And I don't take it for granted, but I'm also incredibly grateful for it. So the Book of Prize is such an important prize that it is career changing. And it gives a book a stamp of excellence and authority. And that is a wonderful way for a book to go out into the world.

What impact did winning the prize have on you personally? Were you, was there a moment where you were completely taken aback or were you just, I'm here for this, let's go? I'm here for this, I'm here for this. Totally. I, you know, I've done a lot of public speaking. I've done loads of interviews. You know, I've been active in the arts and literature for so long

that I could ride the waves of everything. You know, I can imagine if you're very young and it's your first book, it's probably overwhelming. And we know that some writers never write another book or never write another novel. Or they take 20 years to do. do so, but actually because I am so experienced and, you know, I have such strong foundations in my creative practice that it was just something for me to capitalize on and, you know, to

enjoy. And I also feel, I feel that nobody wants to hear me complain about my success, you know? And I think writers shouldn't. It's like, no matter how painful it is for you, just accept that you're in a really privileged position because there are hundreds, thousands of writers out there who are not in your position, who would die to be in your position. So for me, it is a 100% positive thing that's happened to me. You said in your brilliant BBC documentary,

imagine, if you haven't watched it, watch it. I had hoped that I would break through, it just took a long time for me. Are you glad, in light of what you were saying, that sometimes if it's someone's debut novel, they take 20 years to write the next one? Are you glad it was your eighth novel that won rather than say your second? Or do you feel frustrated that it didn't happen earlier?

No, totally. It happened at absolutely the right time. A, a miracle that it happened at all. B, at absolutely the right time. Because, you know, I'm very aware that there are trends. You know, writers have their moment and then they kind of fade from view. So it's great to be having a moment at 60, which is when I won it. and to know that I have this backlist that is also now being read by people.

I don't regret not getting it earlier. Perhaps if I'd had it 20 years earlier, it would have been harder to handle. Whereas with every book that I write, my attitude is it's going to be different to the one before and I'm going to write the book that I want to write and that is absolutely my attitude with the books that I'm going to be writing going forwards.

So it was a perfect time at the age of 60 to receive this accolade and no regrets whatsoever. It's so lovely to hear that there's no element of it feeling like a poisoned chalice because you do read about writers who, well, of course, Sally Rooney's new book is published today and there's so much about can it live up to the hype and is this as good as the others and that's an extraordinary pressure. It is. But you know, my new book, Manifesto is memoir.

So I kind of dodged that bullet for now, haven't I? Because if I was publishing another novel, there would be comparisons. But you're not really going to be comparing a memoir with a novel. And the memoir is about how I became the person who wrote the book. So, yeah, it's a different beast. Your fourth bookshelfy book is The Joys of Motherhood by Bucci Emma Chetta. The Joys of Motherhood is among the Nigerian novelist's most pivotal works, published in 1979, which challenges the idea that a woman's primary

Marie Roll is to be a mother, as well as offering critique on colonialism and patriarchy, amongst other things. Can you tell us what you loved about this book and why you've chosen it for your bookshelfy? So Bucci and Macheta was a Nigerian writer. She died a few years ago. She came to Britain, I think, in 1960. And she was actually among the first of the Granta 20 top writers under 40 in 1984, which was an amazing honour for her to be there, included a black woman especially. She became a writer.

She had five children by her early 20s and I think an abusive husband. So he left her or she left him. And then she just wrote books. She wrote over 20 books and she trained to be

a social worker. She worked in a library for a while and raised her children on her own and was a writer. So she was a phenomenal woman because she did not have support and we're talking about the 1970s when it would have been just tough anyway and my father was Nigerian and when I read the joys of motherhood which was I think it was published in 79

it was the first time I read a book that had a character like my as I imagined my father's mother to be so my father came to Britain in 49 married my mother and never saw his mother again we never met his mother she died in 1967 and didn't know anything about her, but I did know that she was an illiterate petty trader in Lagos. And the character of Nguyengo in the joys of motherhood is an illiterate petty trader in Nigeria

at about the time that my grandmother would have been there as well. And I think it's an exceptional book. It's a classic, and even today, people haven't heard of Bucci and Macheta in this country. and I just think they've got to cotton onto her works because she was a fantastic writer and she was writing stories mainly set in Nigeria, historical, contemporary,

as well as some work set in this country and she was writing about a Nigerian woman living in the first half of the 20th century which was a really unusual thing to do because most of the literature was by men and some people will have read Things Fall Apart by Tunauebe, which has been on the school curriculum for 100 years. And, you know, this book is really the counterpart to Things Fall Apart

because it's a woman's story about her growing up in a very traditional ebo culture, and her role as a child and eventually a mother is to get married and have male sons. That's it. That is her role in life. And she does that with some degree of success, and then her sons leave her. And she also loses children, but also, you know, one of her, I think two of her children go to live in America. And she's left on her own. That's what my father did. You know, he left his mother and went to live in America. And so this is a very personal book for me. And most of the books that I read and that I enjoy, and they're not telling my story. I don't really see myself in most fiction, to be honest. I know a lot of readers feel differently about that.

They want to see themselves in the fiction. And I want to see black characters in fiction, but I don't really see my life or anything. to do with my life. But this book is how I imagine my grandmother lived. And so it's very, very special to me. And I think it's a great book. It's quite hard-hitting. And a lot of the books I've mentioned

are quite hard-hitting. Which I'm not in the same way. But I just think when you when you start to get, when women have a voice to talk about the things that haven't been spoken about, whether women or black women are colour,

and they're writing from their positions as women about cultures where women's fiction and voices have been suppressed, you're going to get some really hard-hitting stuff. You are not going to get guys writing about girls being sexually abused, but you are going to get women writing about girls being sexually abused. And actually some of the books that I've mentioned have got that in there because these are the things that need to be talked about and explore through fiction, through the arts.

and they haven't been. They haven't been. So when, you know, with the bluest eye, that has a girl who's sexually abused. And I read that when I was a young woman. I didn't know anybody who'd been sexually abused by their parent, you know, is incest. And it was so shocking.

And you imagine she wrote that in 1972. And that book was banned for years from parts of America because it was about sex. But, yeah, so there are so many, things that need to be explored through fiction and we're just I think we're still skimming the tip of the iceberg even today and again you've chosen a book that was published over 40 years ago but still feels so resonant in so many ways today I mean that deadpan title about motherhood

I remember when I came to the book about 15 years ago I assumed it was going to be a celebration of motherhood it's only really now that you see people having that slightly kind of deadpan ironic take again in mainstream books about motherhood which is just just a That's true. Another illustration of you saying how this book wasn't as well-known perhaps as it should have been. Just to go about what you were saying about never meeting your father's mother, what impacted growing up without a sense or any knowledge of your Nigerian heritage? What did that feel like? How do you think it shaped you? So my childhood was very white, really, even though my parents were together.

They stayed married 33 years. But I didn't see other than my siblings. and a few people here and there, everything, everything was white. And so you're seen as different because you're a person of colour in that society, especially at that time. This is not the same as walking around London today, right? Where nobody's going to pay any attention.

But maybe walking around other parts of the country, you might get, you know, people will clock you because you look visually different. So you look visually different, but you feel the same, you know, because you're just a child growing up in a culture, but you don't see anything. anything that reflects back

who you are in that society. And so without the Nigerian heritage, which would have been a sort of counterweight to that, I think I was a bit lost. And of course this is all said with hindsight, but I just did not have a strong sense of being a black person or a person of colour or having a Nigerian heritage growing up

because I knew nothing about Nigeria. Nothing. So my father didn't pass anything on apart from a stew that he cooked on a Sunday. And then he put okra in it. And it was like the goobie ochre. So that puts us off that for rest of the childhood. Do you think this lack of knowledge about your heritage

drove this career-long commitment to seeking out and writing untold stories? Absolutely, yeah. It's all positive. I see it all as positive, you know, because I became a writer of the stories that I've written, theatre and then books and other works because I just felt so passionately that we needed to claim the space for ourselves

and that there are so many things to explore that are so interesting and so fascinating about who we are in this society that hasn't been explored and so that has totally driven me and that is rooted in my childhood where it was so absent from the culture around me your fifth and final book this week is that I We're Watching God by Zora Neil Hurston. Set in Florida in the early 20th century, that Eyes Were Watching God explores the life of Janie Crawford

through her marriages to three men. This book was published over 80 years ago in 1937 and was initially poorly received. And you've spoken today and in your documentary about the importance of bringing books to the four that were written a long time ago that didn't get the attention that you feel that they should. What is it about this book that,

that resonates so much with you? So this book was actually rediscovered by Alice Walker. I think it was in the 70s. So Zora Neil Hurston was an incredible woman. Look her up. She was way ahead of her time.

She was a member of the Harlem Renaissance and she was very independent and she was a very productive writer. She was also an anthropologist. You know, she really she really was a trailblazer in many ways, but then she died in poverty and her books went out of print.

And of course that's the other tragedy is that sometimes the books have been there and then they disappear, which was why with Black Britain writing back, which is a series I've curated with my publisher Penguin, we're bringing back all these lost black books. And so Alice Walker, another African-American woman,

decided that she wanted Zora Neil Hurston back in the light, and she was brought back into the limelight. I think they've made at least one or two films about this book. And it is a really special book because it is a beautifully constructed novel about an African-American woman. She's age 40 looking back on her life. And it's also about how her relationships with men,

how she has struggled with her relationships with men who have dominated and controlled her. And if you think that this book was written in 1937, that was way ahead of its time to be writing. about that. And so she has a husband who doesn't want to talking to anybody in the vicinity. And, you know, she's just always struggling to have agency in her life and for her independence. And eventually she does end up alone and she ends up back in the community where she came from, but she's seen as a bit of an outsider because she is a single independent woman.

This is an incredibly feminist book, although she would never have of he called a self-feminist or suffragette or whatever. But it's just beautifully, it's beautiful. It's a beautiful book and it is a classic and it's the kind of book you could give to anybody and say, read this and I would hope that they would love it as much as many people have done. In Imagine, you refer to your career as 40 years of bloody-mindedness.

How has that funneled into your next book, your first memoir, manifesto, and what can we expect from your memoir? Yeah, bloody-mindedness. I think as women, we're not supposed to be bloody-minded, are we? We're supposed to be sweet and nice and polite and passive and unambitious. And, you know, it may sound that that's not the case today, but I think that still exists in our society.

We're still living in a patriarchal society. Not as bad as the one I grew up in, but it's still there, it's still prevalent. You know, when you get the statistics of who is achieving the numbers of women in certain professions, for example, it can be very shocking. So I'm a professor at university, and there are 17,000 professors in this country,

but there's only 30 black women, 3-0. That's a ridiculous statistic. And then you think, oh, it's because black women aren't good enough, but of course that's not the case. There are so many reasons why people don't progress up the career ladder in various professions. So Manifesto is looking at my heritage and where I come from and the people I come from before I was born as well as my parents and looking at how my creativity has been shaped from then onwards. So I look at my living conditions and my relationships and my writing process.

So it's very personal and it's looking at how my creativity has been shaped through the course of my life. Before we finish, I have one final question. If you had to choose one book from your list as a favourite, and I hate asking you this because I would hate to be asked it, but I'm going to anyway, which one would it be and why? I think it will be Sister Outsider because it's a book of ideas and so it's a book that is constantly challenging me to think deeper

and differently about our situations in this society and so it'll always be intellectually stimulating for me and yeah so I think it would be that one thank you so much to Bernardine Everisto and to everyone who came to watch us today.

Thanks very much. Thank you. I'm Yomi Yerdega-Kay and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcasts, brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. As you may have seen, excitingly Bernardine Evaristo and her fellow judges have now crowned this year's winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction, Susanna Clark with Piranesi. It was called Ultimate Escapeism and a mind-bending trip by this year's judges. If you haven't read it yet, you definitely should. Please click subscribe because in our next episode,

we'll be exploring five incredible books by women that shaped comedian Catherine Ryan in a live episode from the Latitude Festival. Please rate and review this podcast. It's the easiest way to help spread the word about the female talent you've heard about today. Thanks very much for listening.