Bernardine Evaristo
English author and judge for the 2010 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry.
Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, born in 1959 in Eltham, south-east London, is an English author and Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University of London. She was raised in Woolwich as the fourth of eight children to an English mother and a Nigerian father. Her literary breakthrough came with her novel *Girl, Woman, Other*, which jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first Black woman to receive that honour. The novel also won two British Book Awards. In 2025, she was selected from all previous winners and nominees to receive the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a one-off honour for the prize’s 30th anniversary. Evaristo served four years as President of the Royal Society of Literature, the second woman and first Black or Asian person in that role since 1820, and was named President Emerita in 2025. She has been a lifelong advocate for inclusion in the arts. She co-founded the Spread the Word writer development agency in 1995 and, in the 1980s, co-founded Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company. She organised the country’s first major Black theatre conference and first conference on Black British writing. Evaristo founded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, which became the Evaristo African Poetry Prize in 2023, and the Complete Works mentoring scheme for poets of colour. In 2021, she founded the Sky Arts Mentoring Award with the Royal Society of Literature, and in 2024, the RSL Scriptorium Awards, offering her Kent cottage as a writing retreat. She also founded the Black Britain: Writing Back series, republishing out-of-print books. In 2025, she established the RSL Pioneer Prize, funded by her £100,000 Women’s Prize donation. Evaristo has received over 90 honours, including an MBE in 2009 and an OBE in 2020.
- field
- Literature, Creative Writing
- nationality
- English
Verified Timeline
Lore & Background
In 2010, Bernardine Evaristo was one of three judges for the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, joining Anne Stevenson and Michael Symmons Roberts on the panel. The Prize, inaugurated in 1993 in celebration of the Poetry Book Society's 40th birthday and in honour of its founding poet T. S. Eliot, awards £25,000 to the winner and £1,500 to each of the ten shortlisted poets. The shortlist is announced each October, and the ten shortlisted poets take part in Readings at the Royal Festival Hall in London's Southbank Centre on the evening before the winner is announced. Two thousand people attended the 2011 reading.
Reader's Guide
Evaristo’s career is defined by her activism for inclusion in the arts. In the 1980s, she co-founded Britain’s first theatre company for Black women, and in the 1990s she organized the country’s first major conferences on Black British theatre and Black British writing. She co-founded the writer development agency Spread the Word in 1995, which remains active. Her mentoring scheme for poets of colour, The Complete Works, ran from 2007 to 2017, and she founded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize in 2012, which later became the Evaristo African Poetry Prize. In 2021 she launched the Sky Arts Mentoring Award with the Royal Society of Literature and the Black Britain: Writing Back series with Hamish Hamilton, which republishes out-of-print books by Black British authors; thirteen titles have been reissued to date. She also established the RSL Scriptorium Awards in 2024, offering her Kent cottage as a writing retreat for struggling UK writers, and in 2025 she founded the RSL Pioneer Prize, funded by her own £100,000 Women’s Prize award, to honour a woman writer over sixty each year for a decade. Her novel *Girl, Woman, Other* jointly won the 2019 Booker Prize, making her the first Black woman to receive that honour, and it also won two British Book Awards. In 2025 she received the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award, a one-off honour for the prize’s 30th anniversary. She served as President of the Royal Society of Literature from 2021 to 2025, the first Black or Asian person and second woman in that role since 1820, and was elected President Emerita. She has also been President of Rose Bruford College and holds numerous honorary fellowships and international memberships.
Did You Know?
- Bernardine Evaristo was a judge for the 2010 T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, alongside Anne Stevenson and Michael Symmons Roberts.
- The T. S. Eliot Prize winner receives £25,000, and each of the ten shortlisted poets receives £1,500.
- The Prize has been called "the most coveted award in poetry."
- Two thousand people attended the 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize reading at the Royal Festival Hall.
- The T. S. Eliot Foundation took over administration of the Prize in 2016 after the Poetry Book Society charity was wound up.
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