Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker Prize-winning novel weaves together the lives of twelve characters — mostly Black British women — across different generations, backgrounds and walks of life. From a radical theatre director in London to a non-binary teenager in the north of England, from a social media-obsessed millennial to a ninety-three-year-old woman looking back on a century of change, the characters are all connected in ways that slowly reveal themselves.

Written in an innovative, near-punctuation-free style, it’s sprawling and joyful and full of energy. Evaristo writes with real warmth and wit, and the novel feels genuinely alive to modern Britain in a way that few books manage. Some characters are more compelling than others, but the cumulative effect is powerful — a portrait of womanhood, identity, race and belonging that feels both urgent and deeply human.

Joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize alongside Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments.