Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, OBE, FRSL, FRSA, FEA (born 1959), is a British author of eight works of fiction. Her eighth book, the novel, Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win it. In 2020 she won the British Book Awards: Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year, as well as the Indie Book Award for Fiction. The novel was one of Barack Obama's 19 Favourite Books of 2019 and Roxane Gay's Favourite Book of 2019. In June 2020 she became the first woman of colour and the first black British writer to get to number 1 in the UK paperback fiction charts, where she held the top spot for five weeks. The novel is currently being translated into 35 languages. Evaristo's writing also includes short fiction, drama, poetry, essays, literary criticism, and projects for stage and radio. Two of her books, The Emperor's Babe (2001) and Hello Mum (2010), have been adapted into BBC Radio 4 dramas. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, one of fewer than 30 black female professors out of around 20,000 professors overall.[5] She was Vice-Chair of the Royal Society of Literature until 2020 when she became a lifelong Vice President. She is also a lifelong Honorary Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford She became a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the Queen's 2009 Birthday Honours, which was replaced with an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's 2020 Birthday Honours,[6] both for services to literature. Evaristo is a longstanding advocate for the inclusion of writers and artists of colour, setting up many successful projects. She founded the Brunel International African Poetry Prize[7] (2012–present) and The Complete Works poets development scheme (2007–2017), which saw many poets mentored who have since become leading figures in poetry, published multiple poetry books and winning most of the major poetry prizes in the UK.[8] She co-founded Spread the Word writer development agency[9] (1995–present) and Britain's first black women's theatre company (1982–1988), Theatre of Black Women.[10] She organised Britain's first major black theatre conference, Future Histories, for the Black Theatre Forum,[11] (1995) at the Royal Festival Hall, and Britain's first major conference on black British writing, Tracing Paper (1997) at the Museum of London. In October 2020 it was announced that she is curating a new book series with Hamish Hamilton at Penguin Random House publishers, "Black Britain: Writing Back", which involves bringing back into print and circulation books from the past. The first six books, novels, will be published in February 2021, including Minty Alley (1936) by C. L. R. James and The Dancing Face (1997) by Mike Phillips.