From the bestselling and Booker Prize-winning author of Girl,
Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo's memoir of her own life and
writing, and her manifesto
on unstoppability, creativity, and activism
Bernardine
Evaristo's 2019 Booker Prize win was a historic and revolutionary
occasion, with Evaristo being the first Black woman and first Black
British person ever to win the prize in its fifty-year history. Girl,
Woman, Other was named a favorite book of the year by President Obama
and Roxane Gay, was translated into thirty-five languages, and has
now reached more than a million readers.
Evaristo's
astonishing nonfiction debut, Manifesto, is a vibrant and
inspirational account of Evaristo's life and career as she rebelled
against the mainstream and fought over several decades to bring her
creative work into the world. With her characteristic humor, Evaristo
describes her childhood as one of eight siblings, with a Nigerian
father and white Catholic mother, tells the story of how she helped
set up Britain's first Black women's theatre company, remembers the
queer relationships of her twenties, and recounts her determination
to write books that were absent in the literary world around her. She
provides a hugely powerful perspective to contemporary conversations
around race, class, feminism, sexuality, and aging. She reminds us of
how far we have come, and how far we still have to go. In Manifesto,
Evaristo charts her theory of unstoppability, showing creative people
how they too can visualize and find success in their work, ignoring
the naysayers.
Both
unconventional memoir and inspirational text, Manifesto is a
unique reminder to us all to persist in doing work we believe in,
even when we might feel overlooked or discounted. Evaristo shows us
how we too can follow in her footsteps, from first vision, to
insistent perseverance, to eventual triumph.