Bernardine Anne Mobolaji Evaristo, OBE, FRSL, FRSA, FEA (born 1959), is a British author. Her eighth book, the novel, Girl, Woman, Other, won the Booker Prize in 2019, making her the first black woman and the first black British person to win it. In 2020 she won the British Book Awards: Fiction Book of the Year and Author of the Year, as well as the Indie Book Award for Fiction. The novel was one of Barack Obama's 19 Favourite Books of 2019 and Roxane Gay's Favourite Book of 2019. In June 2020 she became the first woman of colour and the first black British writer to get to number 1 in the UK paperback fiction charts, where she held the top spot for five weeks. The novel is currently being translated into 35 languages. Evaristo's writing also includes short fiction, drama, poetry, essays, literary criticism, and projects for stage and radio. Two of her books, The Emperor's Babe (2001) and Hello Mum (2010), have been adapted into BBC Radio 4 dramas. She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, one of fewer than 30 black female professors out of around 20,000 professors overall. She was Vice-Chair of the Royal Society of Literature until 2020 when she became a lifetime Vice President. She is a lifetime Honorary Fellow of St Anne's College, University of Oxford and President of Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance, one of Britain's major drama schools.