Girl, Woman, Other

by Bernardine Evaristo

Immerse yourself in the masterful storytelling of Bernardine Evaristo's 'Girl, Woman, Other,' the celebrated winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and a Target Book Club Pick. This compelling novel weaves together the voices and stories of twelve characters, primarily women, painting a rich tapestry of contemporary British life. The New Yorker praised it as 'a symphony of black womanhood' with language that 'spills over the page,' highlighting its lyrical and powerful narrative style. Through interconnected stories, this groundbreaking work explores themes of identity, relationships, and modern society with remarkable depth and nuance. The novel's innovative structure and vivid characterization have earned it widespread critical acclaim and established it as a landmark in contemporary literature. Perfect for book clubs and readers who appreciate sophisticated storytelling that challenges conventions while remaining deeply engaging and thought-provoking.

452 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2019

About the author

Bernardine Evaristo is the Anglo-Nigerian award-winning author of several books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora: past, present, real, imagined. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other won the Booker Prize in 2019. Her writing also spans short fiction, reviews, essays, drama and writing for BBC radio. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London, and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature. She was made an MBE in 2009. As a literary activist for inclusion Bernardine has founded a number of successful initiatives, including Spread the Word writer development agency (1995-ongoing); the Complete Works mentoring scheme for poets of colour (2007-2017) and the Brunel International African Poetry Prize (2012-ongoing).

Reviews

[Marli]

I think a book like this is quite hard to rate. I’d give it 3.5 stars. It’s a book that I’m glad was written - a lot of what was spoken about you don’t really see covered in literature. I think this book definitely takes up a unique space in the canon.

I found particularly interesting some of the characters’ struggle with their own politics and feminism, how you can never ever be right about any of it, and yet are constantly beating yourself up for not being feminist enough, not being liberal enough or open enough etc. That part spoke to me personally in showing how closed minded a lot of leftist politics can be, how we might find ourselves judging people if they don’t do feminism in the EXACT same way as us. It can actually lead to a lot of misogyny.

I read this as an audiobook so wasn’t affected by Evaristo’s lack of punctuation. In audio format, I felt her experimental way of writing, the very long flowing sentences that race into one another with information overload, worked very well. You feel constantly bombarded by labels and terms and ways of defining people, and I think this is intended.

I would note that this feels a lot more like a collection of short stories. I think it would almost have made more sense to market it as such, so that then the reader would be impressed by how all the stories and characters link together, rather than disappointed to pick up a novel that then doesn’t particularly read as one.

All in all, I enjoyed this book and think it covers a lot of important ground. It didn’t blow me away completely but it was a very impressive work and would perhaps feel particularly profound to someone who could relate to it more.

[Hilary]

Utterly engrossing. Borrowed from Molly (thank you) I was a bit wary, since it has been so lauded and widely reviewed, but I was intrigued from the word go and absolutely loved it. The stories of women of colour, their mothers, their lives, and as the book revealed, their connections. Total happy ending too, never to be counted on but always a bonus. I need to reread it now, in a sitting, perhaps making a diagram of the connections - I got a bit confused.

[Beanca Daluz]

Loved every character that I met, all these stories of women who are connected in some way. Initially, the layout of the paragraphing took some getting use to, but learnt that the author was making her point by doing this.
Would love to see this made into a movie. Love the author’s sense of humour and I was laughing at various points of the book. Really enjoyed it

[Cindy RP]

Very touching and deep understanding and reflection on what it means to be a woman in the UK. through the journey of various girls, women, others at many phases of life. I had tears at many parts of the books.

[Katie Heptinstall]

The first chapter and last chapter bored me. The lack of basic punctuation bugged me. I enjoyed the middle.

[Jemma]

I was hooked!! could've continued to read the overlapping, time and space jumping stories forever and ever