This (Booker Prize shortlisted) novel is a glorious, multi-layered representation of black women in Britain; a playwright, a trans teenager, a single mum, an investment banker, a pensioner. Each character is written in a nuanced way with lives overlapping, while showing the many ways in which they can and can't win. It is undeniably a feminist novel; almost all them are to some extent inhibited by the patriarchy, some characters more brutally than others. Despite difference in class, sexuality, faith, age Evaristo ultimately celebrates individuality, showing that there is not one 'black british female experience' but many, and that they are complex, glorious, real. Highly recommend.

Published by Hamish Hamilton on 2nd May 2019