Girl Woman Other by Bernadine Evaristo was the joint winner of the Booker prize in 2019. I thought I ought to read it even though it didn’t appear to be my kind of book.
Half way through the first chapter I knew I’d made a mistake. The first character introduced is a black lesbian feminist theatre director (reorder those however you wish), I didn’t think I was going to get to the end of this novel, Booker or not. But I did and I’m glad that I did.
Girl Woman Other is a series of sketches of women who are all interconnected. It gradually unfolds in a narrative which comes full circle at the end. It’s elegant and held my interest but overall it’s not very rewarding and I can’t see why it won the Booker.
3.5/5