Bernardine Evaristo

Award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo has been hailed as one of Britain’s most original writers. Her novels have been described as ‘Funky yarns so tantalising you want to devour them’ (The Guardian) and ‘Glittering fiction whose words leap off the page into life. Brilliant!’ (The Times).  

Her books include:

A novel-in-verse Lara (ARP, 1997) about her family history with roots in England, Nigeria, Ireland, Brazil and Germany. 

And three books with Hamish Hamilton/Penguin that include a forthcoming novel, without poetry, Blonde Roots (2008), which turns history on its head with Africans enslaving Europeans as its backdrop.  

Bernardine also co- edited, with the novelist Maggie Gee, the British Council/Granta anthology NW15 (New Writing 15) in 2007.  

She initiated the 2006 Free Verse Arts Council-funded report into why so few poets of colour are published in the UK, and upon its publication initiated The Complete Works mentoring project for poets of colour with Spread the Word literature development agency.  

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.  
 Visit www.bevaristo.net to fill in the gaps. 

Rebecca Gray

Rebecca Gray has been with Serpent's Tail for two years, as Publicity Director and Commissioning Editor.  Before joining the company, she worked for Little, Brown, Abacus and Virago in Publicity for four years and as a reader for literary agents and scouts.