"Whether in life or in the ocean of writing, she is happy to be a fish with no end in sight, always ready to say goodbye to the old and swim to new seas."
This article is reproduced from "Looking at the World"
Original title "Booker Prize First Black Female Winner First Interview with China"
Author: Liu Wanying
On a Saturday in February, at 2 p.m. London time, Bernadine Evaristo entered the virtual conference room on time. In the camera, she sits on a fabric sofa with her trademark curly brown hair, greets warmly, and says in a playful tone: "Hey, I thought about it, this seems to be my first interview from China!" ”
In 2019, the Nigerian-British woman writer's novel Girl, Woman, Other won the Booker Prize. The prize is considered the highest award in contemporary English-language fiction, and Evaristo is the first black female writer to receive this award since it was presented in 1963.
Girls, Women, Others, a collection of the lived experiences of 12 ethnic minority characters in British society, honestly chronicles the life dilemmas of the protagonists, but focuses more on how they emerge from their respective fogs.
Evaristo, 63, still looks so brisk, full of anticipation for life and eager to write. The passage of time has left her with endless story material, but it has not put the shackles of her life in the name of old age.
Her life is like an adventure that never stops. From a theater actor, to a poet, from a writer to a university teacher, she jumps between multiple identities, using different notes to form long variations.
This adventurous spirit was infused into Evaristo's writing career. In her newly published autobiography, she writes: "A book can only be a unique entity when I eschew convention. ”
Whether in life or in the ocean of writing, she is happy to be a fish with no end in sight, always ready to say goodbye to the old and swim to new seas.
There are also distresses, such as the fact that house prices in central London are too expensive. When he was young, Evaristo rented there, and "Girl, Woman, Other" also tells many stories that take place in the city center. But because house prices are so expensive, she now has to live in the suburbs of London, she said: "I don't have a beautiful house right now. ”
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After winning the Booker Prize for Girls, Women, Others, Evaristo gave hundreds of interviews. But in this conversation, she said she heard several questions that she had never been asked before, questions that she hadn't even considered. Maybe it's because the questions come from China she is not familiar with.
Here's a conversation between "See the World" and Evaristo.
"Travel through time in the story"
Look at the world: There are 12 main characters in Girl, Woman, Other, who have complex connections with each other and end up in certain scenes at the end of the story. Did you envision this connection between the characters at the beginning of your writing?
Evaristo: It happens naturally, one character leads to one character, and then to another. I didn't sit down and make a plan, like designing 12 characters, 4 of which were mother-daughter relationships, some living in London, some living elsewhere, and it wasn't like that at all.
Amma is the first character in the book, and her daughter Yaz appears because of her. Obviously, because Amma is a mother, I brought up my daughter and Dominic, and then I gave them my own chapters and stories. This was followed by Carol's chapter, and when I was writing Carol's story, her mother showed up and I wrote her part again.
This is how the story unfolds. As a writer, I'm very experienced, but I'm not a great planner either. I love that writing happens in a more natural way and believe it happens.
Look at the world: From the perspective of artistic creation, which of the 12 protagonists are you most satisfied with?
Evaristo: Heidi is one of my favorite characters, and her life is different from mine in every way. The way she thinks and feels, the life she leads, the place where she lives, her age, her family background, her relationships, her descendants, are all very different from mine. Writing her story was a real challenge for me because I had to imagine her life – an elderly woman who lived in the countryside and had always lived on the farm where she was born.
At the same time, I feel that she is one of the strongest characters. Her voice is loud and as a story character, she is very persuasive. So I think she's the biggest challenge in my writing, but probably the most successful character in the book.
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Look at the world: You say that Heidi's life is very different from yours, how did you complete her story?
Evaristo: Because I started writing plays for plays many years ago, and when you write for plays, you write about characters to be performed in front of an audience.
At that stage, I also performed on stage as an actor and you needed to try to be a character for the audience to believe you. That's how I became a writer, and I've learned how to incorporate characters when writing so they give an authentic impression.
Look at the world: If given a choice, whose life would you most like to experience in this book?
Evaristo: That's a great question. I've done hundreds of interviews for this book, and you ask questions I've never been asked before.
Whose life do I want to experience? I'm not sure, some of them have had a hard time. Maybe Grace, I really like history, and if I became Grace, I would experience life 100 years ago, and it would be very interesting. We can never travel through time, and as a writer, when I create characters who live in the past, I travel through time in stories. But that's just my imagination, and if I can really experience that kind of life, it's really attractive to me.
Look at the world: Which character's lifestyle is closest to your real-life lifestyle?
Evaristo: Amma is a bit like when I was younger, she was a creative person and she was my age. She was very personal, and later in life, she made a breakthrough in her career, and I have to say, her life is most like mine. Even though I got married and had a husband.
"I don't want to create victims"
Look at the world: In the stories you write, many characters have experienced difficult moments in life. For example, Latisha has been cheated on many times in romantic relationships, and several characters have experienced racial discrimination. But you seem to be telling these stories in a calm way, rather than emotional accusations. Is this a narrative strategy?
Evaristo: Yes, of course. I think if you're going to write a book like Girls, Women, Other, you can't shy away from the dilemma about faces, gender, and non-binary gender roles. So, it's very important to put in what we're going through, and violence is one of them. The characters in the book are all women of color, living in a white-majority society, and inevitably encounter some racism problems. It's very important for me to make sure I'm true to that.
But at the same time, I don't want the character to be defined that way. They are all complex and have many experiences in life, mother is one of their identities and work is another aspiration, which is part of the book throughout. I think all women have different ambitions, and I want to create characters who have the ability to create a life for themselves, even if they may have difficult origins or face various obstacles.
I'm the kind of writer who doesn't want to create victims, I'm not interested in victim characters, there are hurtful things that happen to us, and there are many other things that happen to us. We exist in the world, enjoy life, have a set of things that shape us, and it's not just defined by race and gender.
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Look at the world: When I read Yaz's chapter, I felt as if I was really a teenage girl writing. Different chapters have different language styles, and I don't know if it's my delusion.
Evaristo: No, it's not an illusion, it's a real observation. When I write about a character, I try to understand how they see things, how they think. For each character, you can feel their language, accent, and even a little dialect. yes, it's really special for them. As I was writing Bumey's chapters, there was a Nigerian voice in my head directing me how to write.
Look at the world: You once said, "A book can only become a unique entity when I avoid conventions", so how do you avoid forming new conventions in your own writing?
Evaristo: I've never had a writing routine before, and I don't think there will ever be because I've always wanted to do different things and love adventure and experimentation. I know people love the fusion fiction style of this book, and I've been asked, will you ever use it again? I don't know the answer, it works for this story, but I'm not sure if it will work for other stories.
If I had to say I had any writing conventions, it would be to experiment and see where it would lead me. The biggest lesson I've learned is that you shouldn't try to write in any traditional way, because it usually doesn't work for me.
Don't let ridiculous age definitions live
Look at the world: We live in an age of ageophobia, and many young women do everything they can to maintain their youthful appearance. How do you get rid of your fear of aging?
Evaristo: That's a big question. I recently went to a place called Palm Springs and suddenly noticed a lot of solidified, artificial faces around. I was really shocked.
It's a constant battle because aging is inevitable, and as Amma says in her book, it's associated with decline, both mental and physical. My feeling is that we need to take care of ourselves, do everything we can to stay mentally engaged and agile, and do all the things we need to do to remain 100% contributing to society and live as rich a life as possible.
We live in a society where once you reach a certain age, you are eliminated, and this age changes depending on the profession you do. If you're a model, unless you're a supermodel, you'll probably be eliminated at 25; If you are an actor, then you should be successful before the age of 30. These ridiculous age parameters are defining our place in life, and we need to get rid of it.
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Look at the world: What is your ideal old age life like?
Evaristo: I'm 63 years old, I'm old for young people, but I feel like I'm still young. My life right now is absolutely wonderful and I won't change anything. My career is what I want, I'm healthy, I can still wear my clothes, have a lovely husband and a lovely "friendship network."
I live in the suburbs of London and if I can make some changes, one of them would be to move closer to central London. I loved the ambience but the houses there are incredibly expensive.
The second thing is that I hope to have a beautiful and warm home at some point in my life. Well, I haven't had it right now because the place where I live now isn't beautiful. In the future, it could be in California, it could be in the Caribbean or Africa, it could be somewhere in southern Europe. Who knows?
The last question is, how do people with multicultural backgrounds face or find their own cultural identity, or in your opinion, do they need to belong culturally to a certain group?
Evaristo: For some people, their cultural identity is something they need to find. If you're a person of color, you'll often feel like you're not fully British here. In this case, you may want to belong to a community that accepts itself, as I did at the beginning.
I come from a family of 8 kids, I'm the most black-minded and politically concerned of them, and my siblings aren't really involved in all the issues I'm involved in as an adult. They are not interested in it, but their lives are also good. It's not that they have to be part of the black community to find their place in the UK, it's that they find their place in the UK, only that position doesn't have to be in the black community.
I wanted to be part of the black community because I could find a strong foundation here. But it's a very complicated thing because identity can be defined in a lot of different ways, it can be about your race, religion, gender, class, geographical location... All of these things help shape your identity.
- END -
"Girl, Woman, Other"
👉 Click to buy "Girl, Woman, Other" (6% off free shipping)
By Bernadine Evaristo
Translated by Wei Lihong
Shanghai Translation Press
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