Saturday 7 December 2019

Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo: a review


Girl, Woman, Other 

Bernardine Evaristo's Booker-Prize-Winning Novel


In my off-line life, I write a lot of technical stuff where clarity is of overriding importance. Short sentences are better than long-winding ones.  Punctuation should be used wherever needed.  Grammatical rules should be observed. 

Unsurprisingly, when I realised that the lack of full stops and commas in Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker-prize winning novel was no technical glitch in my Kindle file but part-and-parcel of the reading experience, my linguistically-rigid self was sorely tempted to put the (e-)book down.  My  cynical persona was also quick to chip in and mischievously suggest that, to be considered for a literary award these days, a novel should:

(i)             avoid the use of punctuation and traditional sentences and
(ii)    proclaim itself as woke from the outset, in this case by featuring as protagonist of the very first chapter an Anglo-African feminist lesbian playwright 

A few pages into Girl, Woman, Other however, these dissenting voices were laid to rest.  Evaristo adopts an adventurous approach but is, at heart, a masterful storyteller.  In this work she presents us with twelve tales about twelve British women, one identifying as non-binary, all of whom have African roots and/or connections.  Each of the individual stories could potentially be a self-standing novella. 

When the reader takes a step back, Evaristo’s skill in structuring her novel becomes readily apparent.  The stories, linked in four related groups/chapters of three, all result to be, in some way or another, intertwined.  They are framed by a specific event, the premiere of Amma’s feminist play at the National Theatre.  At the end, we discover an unexpected coda which ties up a few remaining loose ends and provides an almost old-fashionedly satisfying conclusion.  

As for the women’s stories themselves, Evaristo commented as follows in a recent interview for the Guardian:

I wanted to put presence into absence. I was very frustrated that black British women weren’t visible in literature. I whittled it down to 12 characters – I wanted them to span from a teenager to someone in their 90s, and see their trajectory from birth, though not linear. There are many ways in which otherness can be interpreted in the novel – the women are othered in so many ways and sometimes by each other. I wanted it to be identified as a novel about women as well.

Indeed, I felt that the theme of the “Other” is central to the novel.  The structural complexity of the Evaristo’s work mirrors the complexity of interactions in the contemporary world.  The “black British womenhood” alluded to by the author is not a monolithic structure, but more of a colourful tapestry or mosaic.   The novel’s choral approach is eminently suited to portray this.  In this respect, Girl, Woman, Other is not just a good, but, even, a necessary novel  
yes, necessary
unlike punctuation which
despite the well-worn garb of habit
I found myself
not missing


Kindle EditionUK464 pages
Published May 2nd 2019 by Penguin

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