Bernardine Evaristo scoops Women’s prize remarkable contribution award

Bernardine Evaristo is to obtain £100,000 after being introduced because the winner of the Women’s prize remarkable contribution award, a one-off prize to have a good time the 30th anniversary of the Women’s prize for fiction.

The creator of Girl, Woman, Other and Mr Loverman has been rewarded for her whole frame of labor, in addition to her “transformative impact on literature and her unwavering dedication to uplifting under-represented voices across the cultural landscape”.

The Booker-winning author co-founded Britain’s first black girls’s theatre corporate greater than 40 years in the past, and has printed acclaimed writing throughout a couple of genres. In 2022 she was once elected president of the Royal Society of Literature, turning into the primary author of color and best the second one lady to carry the placement.

Throughout her profession, Evaristo has introduced a number of a hit writing schemes designed to improve feminine writers and under-represented writers of color, maximum not too long ago launching the RSL Scriptorium awards, which offer 10 writers a 12 months the chance to make use of her Kent cottage for a writing retreat.

“I am completely overwhelmed and overjoyed to receive this unique award,” Evaristo stated. “Over the last three decades, I have witnessed with great admiration and respect how the Women’s prize for fiction has so bravely and brilliantly championed and developed women’s writing, always from an inclusive stance.”

She stated the prize cash was once “an unexpected blessing in my life” and “it seems fitting that I spend this substantial sum supporting other women writers”. Details on how she is going to do this will apply, she stated.

Funded by way of Bukhman Philanthropies, the prize is designed to mirror the founding ideas of the Women’s prize for fiction, “to celebrate and amplify women’s voices; to open the pathways into writing as a viable career choice for women from all backgrounds; and to shine a spotlight on exceptional, original books for readers to discover and enjoy.”

As smartly because the prize cash, Evaristo will obtain a sculpture named Thoughtful by way of the artist Caroline Russell, to be awarded on 12 June when the winners of the Women’s prizes for fiction and nonfiction can also be published.

The judging panel was once chaired by way of the creator and Women’s prize founder Kate Mosse, who was once joined by way of a number of former Women’s prize for fiction judges: the instructional and author Gillian Beer; the author and activist Scarlett Curtis; the playwright and creator Bonnie Greer; and the broadcaster Vick Hope. To be eligible for the prize, authors needed to have printed no less than 5 books and been prior to now longlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction.

Mosse stated Evaristo’s “beautiful, ambitious and inventive body of work” in addition to her “dazzling skill and imagination” made her “the ideal recipient” of the one-off award.

“Significantly, Evaristo has consistently used her own magnificent achievements and exceptional talent as a springboard to create opportunities for others, to promote unheard and under-heard women’s voices and to ensure that every female writer feels she has a conduit for her talent,” she stated.