Evaristo’s Booker prize winning novel is a multi-cultural, multi-generational novel that offers an inimitable observation of black British womanhood. Evaristo herself has said in an interview that the novel was written to put presence in the absence of black British women in literature and she does a brilliant job of it! Through twelve characters who are unique in their own ways, she gives her readers a front row seat to the workings and complexities of all shades of black womanhood in Britain. Her women are Lesbians, gender non-binary, traditional types, mixed race, immigrants, and even scandalously incestuous among other things. Girl, Woman, Other is a story of mothers and daughters, of friendships and love affairs and most importantly, of the sort of feminism that is inclusive. It is a powerful story of women navigating time, history and experiences that make or mar them, it is about identity and race and power. When the story begins, we encounter Amma, a playwright whose play
The Sweetness of Water is, and I quote Richard Russo, “better than any debut novel has a right to be” Set in a town called Old Ox in the days after the freedom proclamation and the end of the American civil war, the novel explores the real cost of freedom and the heavy price of shame and guilt. When two brothers, Landry and Prentiss get their freedom, they venture out into the world not knowing what to expect and as their journey deepens and one falls along the way, the question is begged of what the real cost of freedom really is. When the novel begins, we meet George Walker, a good man who unlike his peers has no slaves. He is on a quest to find a monstrous beast which has eluded him since he was a boy. Deep in the woods of his vast estate, he discovers Prentiss and his brother Landry hiding and surviving just a stone throw from the Morton farm where they had been slaves since childhood until only a few days ago. the brothers have endured a harsh life in slavery especially afte