Award-winning British writer Bernardine Evaristo will give a public reading of her work on Nov. 7 at an event co-sponsored by Prairie Schooner, UNL’s international literary journal.
The event will be 5 to 7:30 p.m. at the Van Brunt Visitors Center, 313 N. 13th St., and is free and open to the public. Evaristo will sign copies of her books during a catered reception following the reading. The event is presented through a partnership between the UNL Department of English and Prairie Schooner, along with other UNL sponsors, including the Department of History, the Institute for Ethnic Studies, the College of Arts and Sciences, and Women’s and Gender Studies.
“We’re thrilled that we can bring such a high-profile, prestigious author to UNL,” Marco Abel, chair of the English Department, said. “That we’re able to give our community the opportunity to meet Evaristo in person is the direct result of the collaborative spirit at UNL and is testimony to the generosity of the various units whose support was instrumental for our ability to arrange this event.”
Evaristo is the author of seven books, most recently “Mr. Loverman” (Akashic Books, 2014). “Mr. Loverman” received a positive review in the New York Times, where Ellery Washington noted, “Evaristo’s confident control of the language” and “vibrant use of humor, rhythm, and poetry.” Evaristo writes in many genres, including prose novels, verse novels, scripts, and non-fiction – often mixing elements of each within the same book. She is also an editor, literary critic, playwright and essayist.
Evaristo is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, and was the recipient of an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honors List in 2009. She has won the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize, EMMA Best Book Award, Big Red Read Award, Orange Youth Panel Award, NESTA Fellowship Award and the Arts Council of England Writers’ Award in 2000. She is the founder and director of the Brunel University African Poetry Prize. She also serves on the editorial board of the African Poetry Book Fund based at UNL.
To learn more about Evaristo, her books and her most recent activities, go to http://www.bevaristo.com.
