Bernardine Evaristo: writer, teacher, poet and (political) warrior
Bernardine Evaristo : autrice, professeur, poète et militante
Femme, Fille, Autre, une oeuvre engagée et réjouissante
Première femme noire a avoir remporté le Booker Prize – équivalent du Goncourt au Royaume-Uni – Bernardine Evaristo est l'une des sensations de cette rentrée littéraire. Son roman, le très inspirant Femme, Fille, Autre, met en scène douze femmes noires britanniques dont les parcours de vie bien différents rejoignent des revendications politiques actuelles...
Vocable : How did you come up with the idea for the book? Bernardine Evaristo : I started the book in 2013 and it took five years to write it. At this time I was thinking that there were not enough black women in fiction, because we're not getting published in great enough numbers, and we are the ones most likely to feature ourselves as protagonists.
2. In a sense, Femme, Fille, Autre was born out of an act of frustration, because I thought : ''how can I make up for this in a single book?''. So that's what I did. Initially, I had this crazy idea that I was going to do a thousand women. Then I narrowed it down to one hundred, and then I started writing the book and I thought twelve would be a great number, and twelve would be enough. 3. Vocable : So, how did you pick these twelve characters? B. E : In a way, they picked me! I began with one character, Carole: she is a successful banker, with a Nigerian immigrant mother and she makes this big leap from poverty to success. While I was writing, her mother, Bummi, became quite important and I thought: she's going to be the next character, because I wanted to write about what it's like to migrate, to have a degree but to end up in a job which doesn't require any qualifications. Then, there's Carole's school teacher. And LaTisha, Carole's school friend, because I wanted someone to counterbalance Carol's success. Each of them has a chapter in the book.
4. At a particular point, I also thought that I needed to have some characters who aren't in London, because so much fiction written by black authors is London-centric – so I took it to the north of England and had three characters there. 5. Vocable : Each character also comes from a different background, era, has a different education, a different sexuality... B.E : I decided I wanted to have multiplicity. I didn't want to have a token gesture, I wanted it to be embedded in the novel. I was
5. background ici, milieu / era époque / token gesture geste symbolique; ici, personnage symbolisant une minorité, sexualité, etc. intégré à l'histoire uniquement pour servir de quota / to be embedded in faire partie intégrante de / novel roman /
asking myself : ''What kind of character do I want to develop?'' For example, Bummi has a homosexual experience, and she's probably bisexual. But that's not how I started with her! I just wrote her as a character and then I thought : ''Well, why wouldn't she have a relationship with another woman?'' so you have two Nigerian women having a relationship. It was a very organic process.
6. I think characters have to be at the forefront. You can only bring them alive as fully complex human beings. I am a political writer, but if I just wanted to turn them into the embodiment of political or social issues, it wouldn't work. It would feel as if they are just a mouth piece.
7. Vocable : Your characters are very driven – and yet, they also encounter many struggles: racism, sexism, homophobia ...
B.E : I'm not interested in writing female victims. But also, at the same time, as women, we also do struggle. And we're human: we have difficulties and overcome them. I think that's why people find the book uplifting and inspiring. Because even if the characters have so many struggles in their life – even if it's just daily struggles, really – fundamentally, they succeed at some point.
8. Vocable : Your book also touches on the subject of gender identity, as one character is non-binary. B.E : I did want to be sensitive about how I created that character, Morgan. While writing them, I was learning about what it means to be transgender and to be non-binary. Non-binary seems ideal to me, as it's like throwing out gender altogether. My decision at the end of writing this chapter was that we should all be non-binary!
9. Vocable : The book is very accessible – yet it has a unique style and is written in free verse. Why make this choice?
B.E : I began in theatre in the 1980's, and I was not interested in writing conventional drama. I was born and raised in Britain, but I didn't feel accepted in this part of the culture.When I began creating theatre with my colleagues, we were doing our own thing: experimental performances, using visual poetry, music, movement – anything, really.
10. When I started writing, I approached it in the same way: by doing my own thing.
One of my book, Soul Tourists, has a whole range of styles in it: prose, poetry, scripts, or things that have nothing to do with literary forms! The book I wrote before Femme, Fille, Autre had the same free verse, free flowing form. I thought this style came very naturally to me – so I decided to re-use it.
11. Vocable : You also teach creative writing at a University in London. What advice that you give to young writers ? B.E : My general advice to people who want to become writers is that you've got to do the writing! And if you're a person from a minority, if you're a woman, if you're working class, you're not necessarily going to feel entitled to write or to become a writer – and sometimes you have to tap onto the demons in your head, who tell you writing isn't for you. Writing is for everybody.
12. It took me many years to learn the discipline of being a writer. Throughout my twenties, when I was writing poetry, I would procrastinate a lot of the time. When I was writing my second book, I could look at my blank page all day.
13. Vocable : Any writer you are influenced by and that you'd recommend to our readers? B.E : Audre Lorde [an american black poet]. Every time something new by her came out, I would run to the bookshop to get it. What she wrote about being powerful, about not being silent – I absorbed it all. She was part of my formation as a writer. Toni Morrisson and Alice Walker were also role models. I read them all when I was younger and I still love their work when I re-read it.