The Emperor's Babe

by Bernardine Evaristo

A coming-of-age tale to make the muses themselves roar with laughter and weep for pity -- sassy, razor-sharp and transformative -- from the acclaimed author of Mr Loverman

Londinium, AD 211. Zuleika is a modern girl living in an ancient world. She's a back-alley firecracker, a scruffy Nubian babe with tangled hair and bare feet - and she's just been married off a fat old Roman. Life as a teenage bride is no joke but Zeeks is a born survivor. She knows this city like the back of her hand: its slave girls and drag queens, its shining villas and rotting slums. She knows how to get by. Until one day she catches the eye of the most powerful man on earth, the Roman Emperor, and her trouble really starts...

Silver-tongued and merry-eyed, this is a story in song and verse, a joyful mash-up of today and yesterday. Kaleidoscoping distant past and vivid present, The Emperor's Babe asks what it means to be a woman and to survive in this thrilling, brutal, breathless world.

Genres: Poetry, Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, London, Romance, Audiobook

253 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

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

[Anita · Rating 4 out of 5]

So, "this is a book written in verse" is what you're reading in all the reviews of this book. What you aren't reading is that

this is a book that you forget
is written in verse.

so you just kind of plow through
three quarters of it

until something kind of sings out
and your eyes stutter

and you remember

that this is a book

written

in
verse.

I don't really have the right words to comment on this story. It's magical and lyrical and full of lust and love and sorrow. The commentary is feminist; it's modern and it's ancient.

It's a story of a girl who must become a wife. A wife who learns to become a woman. A woman who tries to be herself.
The pace is set and the reader just tries to keep up. And then it was over.

Thankfully, this story also has sparked my urge to finish Boudica: The Life and Legends of Britain's Warrior Queen, so here I go.

[K.J. Charles]

What an amazing read. A verse novel about a black Roman child bride in 3rd-century London who becomes an emperor's mistress. The text is vivid to the point of fluorescent, mingling details of classical life with casually modern expressions and references (I especially liked this in the placenames, eg they go into the jungle at Bayswater); the cast of characters includes people of all kinds of origins, including the Libyan born emperor and our Sudanese heroine (JUST LIKE ROMAN LONDON ACTUALLY DID, THANK YOU) as well as a trans woman; and the exuberance of the whole thing is startlingly well balanced with the horror of the story--an 11-year old married to a self-centred, rich slave owner in a time when only Roman men existed as human beings and everyone else was chattel, seeking happiness as she grows up and rushing headlong to calamity.

Zuleika's slavegirls are a particularly brilliant touch. She has two Pictish (Scottish) slavegirls, who she treats with the classic slaveowner attitude ('they're so ungrateful for wanting to be freed, don't they understand how good I am to them?') and their accents are conveyed in the kind of heavy-handed slurred phonetics that you find in Uncle Tom's Cabin/Gone with the Wind, only unmistakably Scottish. Point beautifully made.

Linguistically joyful, vividly drawn, and a haunting story. Fab read.

[Amanda B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable! Loved the mix of the old and up to date way it was written, as well as the prose.
Reserving her other work at the library..............

[Cait · Rating 2 out of 5]

Twoooo.......and a half? Idk.

Wow first of all I think the edition I had definitely had the best cover. But anyway. This book feels like somebody's thesis that didn't get enough of a tightening-up before publication. I love the core idea so much--the main character, Zuleika, is the daughter of Nubian immigrants to Roman Londinium, and the book chronicles her life through verse, since she's an aspiring poet--but this really feels like round one of something, where you find an old thing you wrote in high school or early college and dust it off and think hey, this could've been something, let me pick it back up again and give it the treatment it deserves!--and then you majorly rework it. Evaristo was born in 1959 and has been not only writing but teaching writing for at least twenty years, though, so I'm gonna say she doesn't get the excuse of an eager first-timer. It was weird: through most of it we get a lot of Zuleika's self-bemoaning like oh I'm such a terrible poet, blah blah (which, first of all, having your main character be a writer, tip-top in originality), and I'm like, okay, is this being offered as an excuse for the book? I'm confused? because like, we DO get to read some of Zuleika's poems and the book being in verse is just like accepted and it's not like she's like 'oh I'm writing down my life,' so there's like a difference between Zuleika's narration and Zuleika's in-world poetry (which is mostly bad, and supposed to be seen as such!), so I'm like....hm....ok. Like, either way, not really an excuse for a book with mediocre writing, you know?

I don't know. Usually when I rate books this low I like actively dislike them, but I didn't with this one! I like kept wanting it to be better! I am rooting for this book. I believe this book has so much potential!! And yet, tho!!!!!!! Most of the characters were not super fun to read about. Like, you can have interesting ~~morally ambiguous~~ characters and all but like these characters were just kind of a pain to read about? Like, Zuleika's supposed best friend Alba is an obnoxious brat in adulthood ('adulthood,' :( ugh the ages of the characters is so sad for everything that's going on), and Zuleika's always like 'she's so great anyway though and I love her!' but we literally never see anything good about her, like, she is one thousand percent a rude bully who's constantly belittling Zuleika basically....like..... Did love Venus, although I'm like torn leaning toward negative re: the portrayal of her being trans. Like, I get that this is a like 'this is the rude crude world of Londinium and you gotta deal with it!!!!' but there's only so many times you can read the world tr***y and still be on team 'yes, this was a good choice, you keep on hurlin those slurs!!!!' And just like a lot of unnecessary commentary about her body hair etc. in a way that was like 'WAIT JUST IN CASE YOU FORGOT, VENUS ISN'T A REEEAAAAALLLL GIRL OK DON'T FORGET OKAY!!!!' like y'all are supposed to be her friends maybe don't invalidate her womanhood but okay. I don't know, it was just kind of messy at times. Felix was horrid, obviously (altho what was up with all that 'by the way part of his horridness is how fat he is! fat people suck!' like excuse me??? is him being a fucking brutal rapist pedophile not enough to speak for him being awful like do you really have to malign fatness in the process come on??), but Sev also sucked, by and large. Which, like, is realistic, but it was hard to read about Zuleika talking about how great he is when like no actually he was also a creep. Oof and then Zuleika herself, idk. She had, like, surface-level struggles about how she didn't like the person the world was making her to be--she was big on the 'we are what the world makes us' but like maybe own up to the shitty things you do?? but okay--but she was still a like shitty rich society woman and didn't really feel any remorse about that at all, sooo. Ugh I don't know like I do get that the slave-owning part of it was meant to be a like 'whoa isn't this a complex issue' and it was but it was also hard to feel sympathy for some of her actions when like she very much owned slaves and mistreated them. At one point she asks 'am I a slave or slave owner?' and I'm like ahhhh yes your life has been really terrible you face rape from your husband whenever he feels like it and you've been married since you were eleven and that's horrific and awful but also doesn't excuse you like perpetuating shit, you know? Idk, like, I think it's very possible to feel sympathy for Zuleika in her marriage and situation while also condemning her for the like, abuse of her slaves and I think she as a character wants the former to excuse the latter but it really doesn't. Omg I'm rambling I don't know maybe I just shouldn't read about books where the main characters are rich people in the Roman Empire since chances are they owned slaves I don't know!!!!!!

OH also sidenote it's weird to name your book after something that only takes up the last, like, quarter or less of it? Like, this book was about Zuleika's life, and only a small fraction of that had anything to do with the emperor. Idk.

I'm glad Bernardine Evaristo wrote this book. I wish she'd had a better (or firmer, I don't know what the situation was) editor, because I really think this could have been something much more than it was. I don't know!!!!! I did enjoy it but it was also a struggle to read!!!!!! And like by the writing I mean I enjoyed the like fun and linguistic play (it's written in an anachronistic mishmash that includes like, Cockney rhyming slang, Shakespeare references, and youthful-feeling shortening (Zuleika is almost always Zee or Zeeks or Zuky-dot, etc.)) of it, that's not the part that didn't sit well with me. Like, you can very definitely have that is something written in language that best represents the characters and that's a well written book. I don't think this is that book, though.

Omg this is such a mess of a review! Bottom line: I would definitely recommend it to friends who don't mind sacrificing a little in terms of ~writing quality~ or whatever for story!

[Hugh · Rating 4 out of 5]

My latest book from Evaristo's earlier work is this verse novel set in 3rd century Britain. It is a playful book full of deliberate anachronisms. The verse is never very cryptic, which makes it a quick and entertaining read.

The heroine Zuleika is the daughter of an African trader, who marries her off at the age of 11 to a more important middle aged Roman, but she soon gets bored of life in his London villa and has an affair with the emperor Septimius Severus.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could give him backchat, and anyway
I’d never write good poetry because what did

I know about war, death, the gods
and the founding of countries?

But you see, Dad, what I really want to read
and hear is stuff about us, about now

about Nubians in Londinium, about men
who dress up as women, about extramarital

peccadilloes, about girls getting married
to older men and on that note

Londoninium 211, Zuleika the young daughter of a black Nubian small businessman who fled to London as a refugee following a crisis in Khartoum, catches the eye of a older London based Senator and become his wife, expected to stay at home while he spends time in Rome with his mistress and children. Gradually with her previous wild child friend Alba and their mutual friend – an outrageous transvestite and bar owner Venus – she re-enters society where she captures the eye of the emperor – the African born Septimus Severus on his (ill fated) visit to Britain and the two begin an affair.

All of this told in blank verse, scattered with Latin (as well as cod Pictish dialogue from Zuleika’s two servants), and mixing the decadence of the late Roman Empire with historical analogies to contemporary London districts and street life in what becomes an exuberant and easy to read tale.

It is perhaps a sign of how the literary establishment has moved that on its publication in 2001 this book was picked by the Independent as one of a “dozen alternatives to the Booker longlist” and 18 years later after “the mainstream began to absorb what was once radical” the author won the Booker prize with Girl, Woman, Other from which the “mainstream” quote is taken.

It was that win and my love of Girl, Woman, Other which bought me to this book – in the same way that I read Anna Burns’s past books last year.

Much of the themes and style of the recent book is evident in this novel: the history of Black Britain; immigrant and black women experience in the UK; transgenderism; the class system; the vibrancy of London; how to stay true to your heritage but also prosper in a white dominated world; female friendship and rivalry.

Recommended for those, like me, wanting to explore the author’s earlier work.

And I don’t care about the past
and I ain’t writing for posterity

He also says I should write for readers
Five centuries hence

Well, I’m a thoroughly modern miss
And who knows that life will be like then

The Caledonians could rule the world for all we know

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Zuleika accepta est.
Zuleika delicata est.
Zuleika Scheiß-Musterkind vom Dienst est."
- Bernardine Evaristo, "Zuleika"

London, 211 n. Chr.: Zuleika ist die Tochter nubischer Einwander*innen. Ihre Familie hat kaum Geld, doch die Schönheit ist Zuleikas Kapital: Mit gerade einmal elf Jahren wird sie an einen alten, fetten Römer verheiratet - was ein Glück, dass er sie trotz ihrer schwarzen Haut und der Armut will! Zuleikas Freiheit findet durch die Heirat ein jähes Ende, sie sitzt in einem goldenen Käfig, aus dem sie erst mit der Zeit einen Ausgang findet, gedanklich durch Bildung und durch geschicktes Strippen-Ziehen im Haushalt. Sie geht heimlich mit ihren Freundinnen aus - und verliebt sich in den Kaiser Septimius Severus, wodurch ihre ganze Welt aus den Fugen gerät.

"Zuleika" ist Bernardine Evaristos zweiter Roman und erschien bereits vor mehr als 20 Jahren - was für ein Glück, dass er vor Kurzem nun endlich auch auf Deutsch erschienen ist! Fantastisch übersetzt von Tanja Handels können nun auch deutsche Leser*innen in dieses Drama aus Versen eintauchen, das die Geschichte eines Mädchens von heute in einer Welt von damals erz��hlt. London liegt im 2. Jahrhundert n. Chr. in römischer Hand, die Gesetze der Stadt werden von Geld, S*x und Macht bestimmt - kein einfaches Pflaster für ein junges, Schwarzes Mädchen, das um jeden Preis die Deutungshoheit über ihr eigenes Leben erlangen möchte. Zuleika ist Dichterin und leidenschaftliche Liebhaberin, sie hat queere Freundinnen und ihren eigenen Kopf - das bildet sich auch immer wieder in der verwendeten Sprache ab. Denn auch wenn das Buch in Versform gehalten ist und so an Epen von Vergil und Homer erinnert, mischt die Autorin immer wieder moderne Begriffe zwischen lateinische Sprichwörter und verleiht dem historischen Roman damit einen höchst aktuellen Twist. Ich finde es sehr, sehr beeindruckend, dass Bernardine Evaristos Bücher immer wieder in anderen sprachlichen Formen daher kommen, dass sie sich immer wieder neue Themengebiete aussucht und in verschiedene Zeitalter abtaucht. Bei ihrer Experimentierfreudigkeit bleibt aber immer gleich, dass sie die jeweiligen Geschichten aus einer feministischen Perspektive heraus betrachtet - eine meiner liebsten Schriftstellerinnen und ein besonderer Roman, den es zu entdecken lohnt!

[Beth McCallum · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the most unique book that I've ever read, but then again, it's my first experience reading a novel in verse. But the whole time, I felt honoured to be reading something so beautiful, so graphic, so charming, so brutally honest, so raw, so well-written.

It took me a while to get into the rhythm of the poetic writing, but once you learn the author's style, it's simply the most lovely thing. Mix that with the brutal content and graphic scenes of the book, and it's truly something so jarring (in a good way).

I absolutely loved watching the main character explore her sexuality and take ownership of it throughout the novel. The sex scenes were so original, too. The author really knows how to play with language.

I recommend this book, especially for first time novel-in-verse readers. It's incredible.

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, fascinating, troubling, and moving—a dazzling, majestic, crude, vulgar “verse novel” set in a kind of conceptual amalgam of third-century Londinium and modern Britain. This is a daring formal experiment, but Evaristo ultimately brings it off, uniting lyric and narrative in a way that seems to preserve the best and richest of both.

[BookOfCinz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to admit, I am still getting use to reading novels told in verses. Some have been hits and others not so much. I enjoyed reading The Emperor's Babe because I wanted to get an appreciation for Evaristo's earlier works. I also like that Evaristo writes about a space and time in history that I have little knowledge about and made it it accessible and interesting.

Some parts I had to re-read just to understand what was happening, but overall I enjoyed the freshness and feisty characters in this book.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly a POV/context/situation I had never ever seen before and that is uhhh-mazing. Very refreshing. It's set in Londinium, in the midst of the Roman Empire's hegemony over Europe. Not only is the setting something entirely new to me, but also the people whose stories are told. It's about the underdogs in that society, the people that we never hear of when we look back 2000 years in history. The main character and narrator is Zuleika, a young girl of Nubian origin (i.e. black & daughter of immigrants). And then at 11 she gets married off to a Roman governor 20 years her senior (lol). And then the story starts.

Bernardine Evaristo's style is once again funky and doesn't follow classic prose rules. It's almost like reading a poem, but not really. It's halfway between prose and poetry and that's actually quite cool? The reading rhythm definitely changes; it somehow kept me on my toes. Paid more attention to the form and style, and not just the content. Challenging at times but also new so yes, Marta stamp of approval.

Must mention how certain nuances I found suuuuper cool, like how the language characters use is English with some Latin terms thrown in often (the tentacles of imperialism!); also how the author surprises you when all of a sudden someone uses actual, everyday language, used mostly as slang. Makes me go "waaait a minute, I know this". Brings me back to reality for a hot sec and reminds me how these characters (or the people they represent) DID exist. Underdogs like you and me. But in Londinium. AD 211. (!!!)

Other than that the story is quite tragic tbh. Why can't women ever win :))))))))))))

[Katie.dorny · Rating 4 out of 5]

A witty modern ancient smorgasbord detailing the young life of our main girl Zuleika; this kept me chuckling throughout whilst detailing the realities of life as a young woman in a sprawling metropolis.

The narrator for this audiobook really sold the story for me. The characters and world were so vividly brought to life I looked forward to diving in every time I pressed play.

The ending was unexpected, making it all the more jarring compared to the lighter tone used throughout the rest of this short story.

[chooksandbooksnz · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Emperor’s Babe - Bernadine Evaristo


If for any reason anyone has ever doubted the power of written word- this book will restore your faith in that! With so few words, Bernadine Evaristo manages to cover so much in a short time leaving such a lasting impact.

Zuleika is a young bride to a much older man. She is rebellious, driven and full of character. The change in her situation is hard for her to come to terms with (understandably) as one moment she is young and free, next she is expected to be an adult and a wife. Zuleika loves poetry and spends as much time as she can with her childhood bestie, Alba and drag queen Venus.

The Emperor’s Babe is very poetic, deep, bittersweet and alluring. Despite this being set in AD 211, it still felt rather modern.

This is the first book of such a poetic nature I have read and I can imagine this would be an incredible audiobook!!

Something totally different from my usual and I really loved it. I can’t wait to read Girl, Woman, Other.

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t really know what to say. Yes it’s written in verse, which I thought would be an issue but actually it’s fine and you get into it. It’s short and a quick read. It’s a bit all over the place in terms of narrative but maybe I just didn’t really get it? What I did get, I did enjoy.

[Sarah (sarahanneisreading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 3 out of 5]

11-2-19: Liked this one from the start. Finally, a use for my HS Latin! Surprising how much comes right back: amo, amas, amat and all that. Zen Cho called it "smart and sharp and very funny." Good call. I liked the mix of details of Roman Britain with startlingly anachronistic dialogue. The best review I saw here is by KJ Charles: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

12/15/19: at about 2/3 in, I'm losing interest: repetitious, and the historical incongruities are wearing thin. I'll finish it, but not as good as the first half suggested. Well, it is a first novel. Note that while this is written in blank verse (it says on the package), the "verse" consists of putting in a line-break every two lines. A bit disorienting at first, but I quickly got used to this device. Which seemed pointless.

3/6/20: Finally, I'm done! Sat on the bedside table for weeks. Skimmed the last few pages. It's not a happy ending. Not a keeper, but a worthy effort. Love the cover art! (2002 Viking, first US ed.). 3-ish stars overall.

[Suzanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 really. This was not quite what I expected. I liked, but did not love it. It's daring and different, so credit for that, and I might get more on a second reading, which I may do someday, as it's only 250 pages. I certainly wouldn't discourage anyone from reading this, especially those who might be interested in an anachronistic feminist mash-up of I don't quite know what, set in 3rd-century Roman-ruled Britain and done in free verse.

[LeserinLu · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Zuleika" ist ein faszinierendes, wildes und poetisches Versepos, das den Leser in eine fiktive Welt des römischen Londons um 200 n. d. Z. entführt. Die ungewöhnliche Erzählform in Versen, die eine Mischung aus Slang, aktuellen Anspielungen, hochgestochener Sprache der Oberschicht und Latein ist, macht beim Lesen großen Spaß und wirkt trotz der großen Künstlichkeit erstaunlich leichtfüßig und authentisch. Ich bin mir sicher, dass die Übersetzerin hier ganze Arbeit geleistet hat. Tipp: Ich musste tatsächlich ab und zu lateinische Vokabeln nachschlagen, Grundkenntnisse des Lateinischen schaden also bei der Lektüre definitiv nicht. Dennoch ist der Mix aus Altem und Aktuellem der für mich faszinierendste Aspekt des Romans.

Die Hauptfigur, Zuleika, ist eine fesselnde Protagonistin, die als Schwarzes Mädchen in den Straßen des multikulturellen Londons lebt. Als ihr Vater sie im Alter von elf Jahren an einen reichen Patrizier verheiratet, lernt sie zwar finanzielle Sicherheit kennen, sie fühlt sich aber bald eingesperrt und beginnt, inspiriert durch die Lektüre der griechischen Klassiker, selbst zu schreiben - die Versuche sind eher naiv, aber durch diesen Kontrast wirkt die Erzählweise des Romans dann noch einmal umso interessanter. Den Kontakt zum Leben jenseits der Konventionen verliert Zuleika durch ihre Freundinnen nicht, besonders gut hat mir hier die queere Figur der Venus gefallen. Und schließlich findet Zuleika durch die Begegnung mit dem römischen Kaiser auch noch Leidenschaft - doch wie lange wird die Affäre gut gehen?

Die Geschichte von Zuleika ist geprägt von Widerspenstigkeit, Schlagfertigkeit und wilder Schönheit. Die Autorin hat es geschafft, eine Inter Welt zu erschaffen, die mich sprachlich als auch inhaltlich in ihren Bann gezogen hat und der man die Freude der Autorin am Schreiben anmerkt. Das war mein erster Roman der Autorin, aber definitiv nicht mein letzter!

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Happy Wednesday to everyone, but especially to Bernardine Evaristo whose books always bring me joy! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, there is just something so playful about her use of language and this is a particularly striking example of it.

In The Emperor’s Babe, Evaristo throws the rule book out of the window, it is a book written in verse mixing noughties cosmopolitan London parlance with the Latin of Roman Londinium, creating a product that is entirely unlike anything I’ve ever read.

There is a mixture between bawdy humour, social satire and a real emotional pull at the heartstrings. Zuleika, our protagonist, was married underage to a powerful Roman governor and as a result she climbs to the top of the social hierarchy but finds her growth stunted as she is locked away inside her villa, caught between adolescence and adulthood.

The two tones of the story blend together comedy and tragedy as Zuleika comes of age in a very brutal time in history, whilst also carving out her own identity through poetry, her friendships with sexually liberated women and drag queens, and her own sexual awakening. The violence of the amphitheatre, the excess of orgies and the realities of slave ownership all clash together with Zuleika’s newfound passion for an unforgettable and bittersweet conclusion.

[Jade Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tuneful little gem of a book

[Rosamund Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Set in Roman Britain, this irreverent novel-in-verse tells the story of Zuleika's marriage to a wealthy Roman nobleman, and what it's like to be Black in a backwater post of the empire like Londinium. Zuleika grows up very poor, and is raised to unexpected heights when a wealthy Roman takes a fancy to her, and marries her when she is only 11. Evaristo's writing style works brilliantly for this: the verse is funny, fast and full of nods to the modern world, as well as a realistic take on Roman Britain. It's a mixture of tongue-in-cheek observations that speak to modern Britain, and a gritty exploration of the harsh realities of the Roman world. While Zuleika's voice, speaking these poems, is compelling and original, the rest of her characterisation doesn't feel very nuanced, and the all of the other characters are stock. I wish some elements had been explored more fully -- both Zuleika's wish to be a poet or artist, and how she lives within the trauma of her situation. I have mixed feelings overall about this book: it's very clever, and very original -- stories like this have sprung up since Evaristo wrote it in 2001, but it's clearly a trailblazer. On the other hand, some elements, especially the lack of insight into the characters, can be frustrating. Evaristo's voice and ideas are very powerful, and they do carry this book along, but I'm not completely convinced by it.

[Lulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a read! I’ve never read anything quite like it! The subject matter and prose was everything!! Definitely worth a read.

[Liv · Rating 4 out of 5]

✨3.8 STARS✨

[Joanne Sheppard · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Emperor's Babe is a novel written in blank verse, set in Roman London. The narrator is a Zuleika, a girl born to Sudanese immigrant parents who, aged 11, is quite literally sold by her father to a wealthy man who wants her for his bride. Skip forward a few years and Zuleika is pampered materially but emotionally neglected, bored and unfulfilled - until she catches the eye of the Roman Emperor, Septimius Severus,

By far the most notable thing about The Emperor's Babe is its language, which is a strange mix of modern slang, street-talk and Latin phrases that combine into a sort of patois. It's sometimes effective, but just as often grating; it all just feels very overdone and occasionally patronising. Similarly, genuinely atmospheric evocations of life in Roman Britain - which are fascinating, vivid and a great reminder that London was just as multicultural a city circa 200AD as it is now - are peppered with deliberate anachronisms. I assume are intended to make us feel closer to Zuleika and her world and identify more directly with them, but I found the somewhat laboured humour in references to Armani tunics and the EC4 postcode very quickly wore thin.

This is a shame, because some of the story really is beautifully written, and amid the brashness of Zuleika's narration, there are several moments that are touching, heartbreaking or arresting in one way or another. Zuleika's deliberately offhand references to the horrors of her wedding night - she is married, remember, at the age of 11, to an obese, middle-aged man - are painful in their deliberate casualness, and there is a viscerally shocking scene when she experiences a moment of catharsis while watching the grotesque cruelties of the amphitheatre.

While Bernadine Evaristo has done an innovative and interesting thing with this book - and I am sure many people would love it; there is much to admire in it - this one's just not for me, I'm afraid.

[Amena · Rating 4 out of 5]

When @penguinukbooks offered to send me two books for #BlackHistoryMonth I asked them to surprise me with their choices. Along with "Bone", this one arrived. I flicked through it and was immediately sceptical. I've never read a modern novel in blank verse and wondered to myself how this was going to go down. I needn't have worried. I was so engrossed that the format did not bother me one bit. *

Set in Roman London, the protagonist is Zuleika, born to Sudanese immigrant parents and is sold at age 11 for marriage. Zuleika is unhappy until she catches the eye of the Emperor and becomes his mistress, hence the title. It is witty, sarcastic and full of humour, all of which is underlying with sadness and the theme of feeling unfulfilled. Zuleika and her friends are essentially modern females trapped in an ancient world. And these girlfriends? Well, we have them having a chinwag about men and love, putting the world to rights and rooting for each other. At times the language felt a bit much for a Roman era, but overall, lyrically, it was brilliant! Every time I put it down I was only eager to pick it up again.
4.5 🌟

[Jayaprakash Satyamurthy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Audacious, sassy, brassy, bold, polyglot, slangy and sublime...Evaristo's verse novel of a black girl in Roman London who briefly becomes the Emperor's babe is a wonder. All of the decadence of imperial Rome is evoked in its sick, lush glory, the eternal, multiracial slums and gentrifying neighbourhoods of London are painted in noisome detail and a tale of the hidden figures of history, of the girls and women and dark people, from slaves to emperors, we usually don't associate with classical history. Taleb would tear out what little hair remains on his head!

[Matilda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was very cool. I loved the use of Latin phrases and also seeing a different side of Roman Britain, beyond the dull houses of governors.

I don’t remember what happened at the end so that’s not great but I did like reading the book.

[Bree Pollard · Rating 4 out of 5]

so fun and witty !!!

[Karen Wellsbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in London in Roman occupation, Zulieka is full of life and energy and wit.
The book mixes modern with old to great effect, Zuleika's friends Alba and Venus are just like her both hilarious, touching and sad.
The story of Zuleika's marriage at 11 and love affair at 18 is shocking, and her feelings are expressed so well.
Wondeful

[Lily Upot · Rating 5 out of 5]

quick one day read to finish off the year 🤣
great book and unlike anything i’d read before - i kept forgetting this was written in verse and loved the mix of old and new language, esp. for alba’s character