Writer’s Bloc Partnership: Bernardine Evaristo & Roxane Gay | January 28

Friday, January 28, 2022 — 1:00 pm

Bernardine Evaristo was an unlikely — and surprising– winner of the 2019 Booker Prize for her extraordinary novel, Girl, Woman, Other. She is the first Black woman to win the Booker, which is considered to be the most prestigious prize for a novel written in the English language. And second, she is the first Black British person to take home the award.

In her new book, her nonfiction debut, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up, Evaristo combines a memoir and a manifesto about achieving the impossible, about simply refusing to give up despite the odds. She fought the mainstream, and ended up with the Booker. She’s bitingly candid about her insistence on filling the void where voices like hers were absent, and her discussions on race, class, sexuality, and aging are not only resonant with a wide audience, but hit home with power and humor.

Evaristo is one of President Obama’s favorite authors, as well as lightning rod writer and activist Roxane Gay.

Talk about literary power. Roxane Gay has become an iconic lightening bolt of an author, whose books routinely end up on dozens of prestigious Best Books of the Year lists. Her books are manifestos as well– Bad Feminist, Hunger, Difficult Women, and others– through short stories, memoir, and essays. Roxane Gay is considered to be one of our most influential cultural observers.