Summary

In the introduction to Manifesto, Evaristo recounts how winning the Booker Prize in 2019 for her novel Girl, Woman, Other brought her a new level of fame and recognition, despite her having worked in the arts for 40 years. This caused her to reflect on the elements that determined the trajectory of her career, which makes up the subject of this memoir.

In Chapter 1 — “One: heritage, childhood, family, origins” (3) — Evaristo traces her family tree while considering how elements of race and class affected her means and desire to pursue a creative path. This exploration revolves around her Nigerian father and English mother, who met in London in 1954, married, and had eight children. Evaristo mentions the sense of belonging that she lacked growing up biracial, and comments that race is both a lived experience and an absurd biological fiction.

Evaristo was...