British author Bernardine Evaristo has been commended with the Women’s Prize outstanding contribution award, in celebration of 30th anniversary of the Women’s prize for fiction.
The one-off prize comes with £100,000 (AUD$185,000). Evaristo became the first black woman to win The Booker Prize in 2019 for her acclaimed book Girl, Woman, Other. She shared the prize with Margaret Atwood.
This week, the 66-year old author said she was “completely overwhelmed and overjoyed to receive this unique award.”
“Over the last three decades, I have witnessed with great admiration and respect how the Women’s prize for fiction has so bravely and brilliantly championed and developed women’s writing, always from an inclusive stance,” she said.
She said the prize money was “an unexpected blessing in my life” and that “it seems fitting that I spend this substantial sum supporting other women writers.”
Eligible candidates for the prize had to have published at least five books and been previously longlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction. Evaristo was longlisted in 2020 for Girl, Woman, Other.
The judging panel for the Women’s prize outstanding contribution award included Women’s prize founder Kate Mosse, writer Gillian Beer; writer and activist Scarlett Curtis; playwright and author Bonnie Greer; and broadcaster Vick Hope.
They praised Evaristo’s “transformative impact on literature and her unwavering dedication to uplifting under-represented voices across the cultural landscape”.
Mosse applauded Evaristo’s “beautiful, ambitious and inventive body of work” and her “dazzling skill and imagination” made her “the ideal recipient” of the award.
“Significantly, Evaristo has consistently used her own magnificent achievements and exceptional talent as a springboard to create opportunities for others, to promote unheard and under-heard women’s voices and to ensure that every female writer feels she has a conduit for her talent,” she said.
Evaristo is the author of eight books spanning multiple genres, including Mr Loverman, Blonde Roots, Soul Tourists and the non-fiction book Manifesto: On Never Giving Up.
In 1982, she co-founded Britain’s first black women’s theatre company, Theatre of Black Women, which toured internationally with plays by, about, and starring Black women in the UK.
Throughout her career, Evaristo founded many writing initiatives designed to support female writers and under-represented writers of colour, including Spread the Word, which offers creative writing workshops to under-represented groups, and The Complete Works, a mentoring programme for poets of colour.
In 2022, she became the first writer of colour and only the second woman to be elected president of the Royal Society of Literature. Last year, she launched the RSL Scriptorium Awards, a yearly program that gives 10 writers from under-represented and marginalised communities to access her Kent cottage for a writing retreat.
The prize was established to reflect the founding principles of the Women’s prize for fiction — “to celebrate and amplify women’s voices; to open the pathways into writing as a viable career choice for women from all backgrounds; and to shine a spotlight on exceptional, original books for readers to discover and enjoy.”
Evaristo will receive her latest award on 12 June when the winners of this year’s Women’s prizes for fiction and nonfiction will also be announced.
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