By: Albert Williams

Imagine a polyphonic choir made up of 11 women and a trans-man of colour, singing a song about their lived experiences in dissonances and chilling harmonies. Never mind, no need to imagine, because Bernardine Evaristo proves herself a Maestra in orchestrating this feat in her Booker prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other.

In a world being reshaped by the #metoo and #blacklivesmatter movements, Evaristo’s novel centers Black women in discussions on sexuality, abuse, and identity. The novel reads like a collection of short stories, with each of the twelve characters being given their own chapter, culminating in a grand reception that craftily threads them together.

The stories are deceptively simple, as they appear straightforward, but there is so much happening once you’ve been lulled into expecting a cakewalk. This may sound like a daunting read, but it is not. It is fluid artistry, calling attention to itself in places and forces interrogation of the world the characters live in, yet it still manages to not feel laboured.

Girl, Woman, Other opens with Amma, a talented playwright, hours before the debut of her latest production. It is not ironic that Amma’s production, “The Last Amazon of Dahomey”, presents the story of a tribe of warrior women and their battles against invaders because Amma is used as the string that connects the characters and their personal battles. Characters are linked, with varying degrees of separation, to Amma. Their stories intersect and building on each other’s, providing nuances and contrast showing that women, in this case, women of colour, are not a monolith.

However, they all seem to pivot on a single issue; finding their place in a racist, patriarchal society. What does it mean to be a woman? Who crafted this definition? Is it a static definition? Are the hopes and dreams the same for all women, 20, 30, 40 years ago? These questions are explored through amusing instances of conflict with characters believing their fight is more important and the one that will change society.

I guess it would be safe to say this novel sets out to be disruptive and believe me, it accomplishes that. We see this disruption even in the sentence structure, as Evaristo dismisses convention; common letters begin sentences, page breaks take the place of paragraphs, commas are nowhere to be seen, and periods are just as elusive. Winsome, a Caribbean immigrant we meet in Chapter 9, having reading Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners lamented “the women don’t even get a chance to speak”.

Evaristo’s rebellion may have been incited by Selvon’s slight as it is not until the penultimate chapter that we hear from any of the male characters, and even then, the focus is still on the women. Evaristo uses Roland to usher us into the reception, a celebration of Amma’s success, where all the characters we have just met are gathered.

There is a wink of self-awareness that is hard to ignore, as the novel draws closer to completion, we have just witnessed the trials and triumphs of the named characters and now we join in this celebration not only of Amma but the book itself. In addition, Evaristo, in what must be tongue-in-cheek humour, has Rolando derides Amma’s commitment to “writing plays about Black women which will never have popular appeal” and identifies this as the barrier to her success. The placement and rich irony of this statement show Evaristo felt her mission was accomplished in centering black women in a space they have longed been silenced.

Girl, Woman, Other claimed a space among my all-time favourite books. I went in with high expectations, and they were all exceeded. This book will be marked as a classic in the years to come. The book you never knew you needed, but here it is. I highly recommend that you grab your copy ASAP.

Girl, Woman, Other BY Bernardine Evaristo .

2019. Grove Press: 464 PAGES. Hardcover $ 27.00

Albert Williams is a lover of books and the world they offer up to him. As a former teacher of English, he is passionate about introducing people to the joys of reading.