The Author (Bernardine Evaristo)

In her memoir, Evaristo examines herself and her experiences in the context of her creativity as a writer, actor, and creator of theater. In doing so, she explores many disparate aspects of her life that she shows to be in some way or other connected to her creative self — family, relationships, money, identity and self-image, community, and more. With this approach, she discloses a substantial amount of personal information about herself, including her childhood and upbringing, emotions, sexuality, and opinions.

Evaristo grounds her exploration of creativity in her identity as a Black British woman with evolving feminist politics who at one time lived as a lesbian. She uses her own experiences with marginalization to consider marginalization in the worlds of publishing and drama, explaining how her racial identity and the limited opportunities available to her encouraged her to approach theater (and later writing) through...