Girl, Woman, Other, a Moment of Hope
It’s 2021, and let me tell you, it’s all starting to look a little similar to 2020. So, let’s find hope. Girl, Woman, Other is Bernadine Evaristo’s most recent book, and Fiction Book of the Year at the 2020 British Book Awards. For a writer, at any stage, it’s a must read. A book about youth, love, trauma and the active oppression of ethnic minorities within the UK. It is heavy, honest and crucially hopeful. Evaristo (who is, to say the least, hilarious) draws influence from other writers of colour (like Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing), the history of how black migrants have been treated in the UK, and her own theatrical life. Repeatedly, through strife, Evaristo holds close her sharp wit and comedy. As she says, ‘[Girl, Woman, Other] is future, it is past. it is fiction, it is history’.
In her energetic humour, Evaristo builds something you wouldn't expect from these topics — hope. I’d like to highlight the stories of Amma and Dominique, reuniting on the night of Amma’s play,
“‘the distance of three thousand miles across America… dissolves as if was never a barrier in the first place”
These are two characters brought after years of being apart. Knowing each other from their messy but free 20’s, the two have branched off, Amma focusing on her career while Dom finds herself in America, both drawn together by their own cutting wit and driven radicalism. Their trauma isn’t for me to tell. In one of the closing chapters, their reunion is described succinctly. Through everything, these two come together, still able to find solace in one another. As a writer talking about hope, Evaristo transforms her optimism and wit into character, and teaches us something critical: hope comes in one moment, from the heart of the personal. Amma and Dom find unity in this moment,
“they pick up as comfortably as the time before, this is the real meaning of friendship that lasts a lifetime”
If you’re looking for a tonal shift in your 2021, give Evaristo’s latest a shot. Girl, Woman, Other stands as the most experimental, radical and hopeful books I have read lately. For any writer looking to see hope within themselves, and within their writing, this is where it’s at.
Buy Girl, Woman, Other here.
by Hailey O’Gorman
About the briefs and co-ops
On week 1 of the Post-Digital Content module, students where asked to respond to the brief of Writers and Hope. This piece from the Dauphin co-op was selected for publication by the editorial team of the module. Dauphin reaches out to the beginners in the audience. Hailey welcomes them into the fascinating work of Booker winner Bernadine Evaristo in this piece.