Bernardine Evaristo

Bernardine Evaristo0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Presenter0:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:43

My castaway this week is the writer Bernadine Evaristo. Last year she won the Booker Prize with her eighth novel, Girl, Woman, Other. It was an historic victory. She's the first black British author to receive the trophy. For her it was also the manifestation of a decades-old dream. Challenging herself to set an unrealistic goal early in her career, she had chosen to visualize winning the prize. Whether she'd imagined commanding the attention of a former US President during his downtime, I can't say. In any case, Barack Obama is also a fan. He named Girl, Woman, Other as one of his favourite reads of 2019.

Presenter1:20

She describes herself as uncompromising, which has come in handy. Her thirty-eight year career in the arts as a critically acclaimed playwright, poet and author has run in parallel to her life as an activist. Growing up in a large British Nigerian family in Woolwich, she was a voracious reader, but theatre was her first love, and on graduating from drama school she founded Britain's first black women's theatre company.

Presenter1:43

She says, I feel very subversive as a writer. I write the stories I feel need to be out there, defying stereotypes and writing into the absences that have prevailed. Bernardine Evaristo, welcome to Desert Island Discs. Thank you so much. It's so good to be here.

Presenter2:00

So Girl Woman Other tells the story of 12 characters, mostly women of colour, living in Britain, and their ages range from 19 to 93. It's a beautifully complex narrative, but what was your aim when you started writing it? I wanted to write a book that had as many black British women in it as possible, because there were so few of us getting published, and so we just weren't really present in British fiction, or fiction anywhere in the world, to be honest. So I thought, okay, I'm going to put 12 women in a novel and see how that works out. The book hit the top of the charts in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protest this summer. How did it feel to see your writing connect not just with readers but with our times in that way?

Bernardine Evaristo2:26

List.

Presenter2:41

It's astonishing, to be honest, to think that this book has become a bestseller because in my mind it's a book that I wrote when very few people knew my work and it's very much the kind of book I would write which is, I think, radical and experimental. There are a lot of women on the queer spectrum in the novel, a quarter of them in fact. And so for it to then make the bestseller lists and then to reach number one and stay there for quite a while was surreal. It's the power of the booker essentially. So it's good. It feels like these characters who most of them readers won't really have met before in fiction, it feels like they're going out there into the world and they're becoming known. And so black British women are becoming known. And I think that's a really positive thing.

Presenter3:31

We're on the radio, so our listeners will have to imagine your personal aesthetic. But I know that it's vivid, it's colourful and flamboyant, and you've said that it's important to you. It's a visual statement of who you are as a woman in the creative arts. Can you tell me a bit more about that? I do wear extremely colourful clothes, and the older I get, the more colourful I become, I think.

Presenter3:49

When I was growing up, you know, we were a mixed race family in a very white area, and we stood out because we were black children, and it wasn't a positive thing. And then at some point, I decided I was going to just make a virtue of it and to dress in a flamboyant way. And in the last few years, I've really decided to, yeah, wear colourful clothes because I think we should anyway. But also, I don't want to hide who I am. I want to be noticed, and I think one of the ways in which we can do that is by how we present ourselves visually to the world. And also, I don't want to look like everybody else. Let's start with your first disc. What are we going to hear? Malaika, which is a classic Swahili song. And I've chosen the version sung by Angelique Kijot, and I love Angelique Kijot. And it's a song that I think it comes out of the 50s, and it's so full of love and yearning. It's just the most beautiful song.

Bernardine Evaristo4:51

Malaya

Bernardine Evaristo4:55

Nakupenda malaika

Bernardine Evaristo5:02

Maleko

Bernardine Evaristo5:11

Ning ekuo mariwe

Bernardine Evaristo5:17

Ying kwa da da

Bernardine Evaristo5:23

No shingle money no way

Presenter5:27

Angeliqueo and Malaika. Bernardine Evaristo, you've said there was nothing in my childhood that said I could be a writer. So what did it say?

Presenter5:37

Oh, interesting question.

Presenter5:40

Well, my mother was a school teacher, and I did go to a grammar school. So I guess.

Presenter5:46

I guess that would have been an option for me. And in fact, my elder sister did uh go on to become a a teacher and also a deputy headmistress.

Presenter5:55

But there were no role models for me in terms of being a black British girl in the society around me, really. I went to the youth theatre when I was twelve and that changed my life. And I kind of wonder what would have happened if I hadn't have done that, because I might have been a bit directionless. What were your aspirations as a little girl? What did you do? Oh, I wanted to be a nun.

Bernardine Evaristo6:15

Someone wants it to be a n-

Presenter6:16

A nun? Yes. Okay,'cause your mum was Catholic, right? Yes. Oh, yes. I was very indoctrinated. We used to go to church every Sunday and I used to go to confession and confess my sins and I believed it all. I stopped going to church when I was 15. When we so I come from a large family of eight kids and when each of us reached the age of fifteen, my mother said,

Bernardine Evaristo6:18

Okay.

Bernardine Evaristo6:20

Yeah.

Presenter6:38

You can now make your own decision about whether or not you continue going to church, and every single one of us stopped going.

Presenter6:44

So, there's 10 of you in the house, and it must have been a very busy house with all those people in it. Tell us a little bit about growing up. It was, it was a very busy house. My parents bought it in 1960 for £2,000, and it was a big old Victorian house with five bedrooms and two reception rooms. So, there was space for us. We each shared a room with one other member of the family. We didn't have any money, and my dad was the kind of person who would start things and not finish them. Most of the time, we had bare floorboards and walls that were unpapered. It was a creaking

Bernardine Evaristo6:45

Yeah.

Bernardine Evaristo6:50

Brilliant?

Speaker 46:50

Yeah. Yeah.

Presenter7:19

Drafty old building, but it could hold us all. Your dad had moved over from Nigeria. How much did you know about his roots there? Almost nothing. He didn't tell us anything. He said later on that he wanted us to grow up as English children, and so it wouldn't be wise for him to tell us about his past or to pass on his language, which was Yoruba. And so he was a mystery, actually. And also, our father didn't talk to us. He disciplined us and he told us off, but he didn't really chat to us. Do you think he was scared for you? Absolutely scared for us, absolutely. He had eight children, four boys, four girls, at a time when there was a lot of racism on the streets before the Race Relations Act. So he had children in a society where it was kind of okay to be racist, and he had to protect us. What did that dearth of knowledge mean to you? It's the kind of thing a kid could project into from their own imagination if they were so-minded. Yes, well, I think we probably, I mean, I've talked for myself, I think I probably saw Africa in the way that Africa was seen back then, and perhaps is seen by people today, which is that it was somewhere uncivilized and savage and not somewhere to be proud of. And my father was a very dark-skinned black man, and I remember when I was about maybe about 11, seeing him walking down the street towards me, and I crossed the road because I didn't want to say hello to him, because I didn't want to be associated with him. I mean, that feels.

Presenter8:54

terrible now, but that's what it was like because growing up in the sixties and seventies in a very white area, there was nothing around us to tell us that being a person of color was a good thing.

Presenter9:10

Let's take a minute for some music. It's your second disc. What is it and why have you chosen it today? So, Felakuti, love Felicuti, have always loved Felakuti, and the track is Zombie. And even though my father was distant and a disciplinarian, in the 1970s, he would have parties. My mother and father would have parties, and they'd bring their Nigerian friends in. The Nigerian friends were always married to white women. My mother is a white woman. And they would play King Sonny Ade and other African high life musicians and also Felakuti. And my dad's friends would dance with us, the girls in the family, and we kind of enjoyed the parties, but we didn't like dancing with them because the tracks would go on for about half an hour. So if your dad's old mate wanted to dance with you.

Bernardine Evaristo9:53

So if

Presenter9:56

It would go on and on and on.

Bernardine Evaristo9:59

Oh.

Presenter9:59

But now, listening to Fella Kuti, I love his long tracks, because you just enjoy it.

Presenter11:11

Fellakuti and Zombie. Bernardina Varisto, the world that you describe as a child sounds quite constrained. Before you got to youth theatre, the first escape that you found, I think, was like many kids of your generation and in your circumstances was books from the local library, so Woolwich Library. Oh, loved it, loved it so much. I would go down to the library every Saturday and pick up two or three books and read them during the week. And books opened up the world to me. And they were a form of entertainment because I wasn't going anywhere. I just immersed myself in books and I was a good reader. And it was free. We didn't have many books in the house. We had like a tiny, tiny bookshelf with some very old books. I don't know what they were. Is it true that you used to read on the walk to school? Oh, yeah, I did. Maybe for two reasons. One was that I just got into the stories I was reading and was really didn't want to put them down in the same way that I've seen students of mine walking through campus at the university where I teach reading from a computer as they walk along. I can't quite believe that. But then I used to do it with a book. And also I was quite shy.

Bernardine Evaristo12:17

But

Presenter12:21

So it was a way, I think, to cut out what was going on around me and just to focus on what was in front of me. And I remember reading Roots when I was 15, which was the epic novel about slavery. And then there was an accompanying television series in 1975. And I remember getting that book and reading it. And that made a really lasting impression because that was actually the first black book I read because the other books were all white books because that's what was around at the time. You didn't try to write, though, or fancy yourself a writer one day. Why not? No, not at all. I don't know. I mean, I guess it just wasn't even something that was possible. You know, if you come from a working class background.

Presenter13:02

It's not an option, is it? Unless somehow you get to know somebody or you have a teacher at school who presents it as an option. I didn't know any writers and as a young child thinking about careers, which I wasn't doing anyway, but you know, apart from being a nun, it's like you're just thinking of like what how do you earn a living?

Presenter13:24

And writing is not uppermost in in the minds of children who are not in that kind of culture.

Presenter13:32

So as you said, it was acting rather than writing that that captured you as a a teenager. What was it about that?

Presenter13:39

I went to the local Youth Theatre, Greenwich Young People's Theatre, that's what it was called, and it was about ten minute walk from my house and it was in a big old church and I just absolutely loved it from the pretty much from the minute I walked in the door.

Presenter13:52

It was fun. I think that's what it is when you're a child, when you're acting. It's not about wanting to be a great performer. I have no memory of wanting to be a great performer at the beginning. I just wanted to go there because it was it was almost like going to a community centre.

Presenter14:06

and doing all kinds of games and performances and singing and running around and getting on with each other. I just remember it being a very freeing experience for me.

Presenter14:21

It's time to say goodbreak for some music. This is your third disc today. What are we going to hear and why? Well, Sweet Honey in the Rock, one of my favourite all-time groups, a cappella, African-American women's group, very feminist and very political and spiritual. So the song I've chosen is called Breaths, which is, I think, a beautifully spiritual song and it's kind of about the ancestors. And I think when I'm on an island, it's just going to remind me of the people I've known. Listen more often to things than to deals. 'Tis the ancestors birth, When the Fire's voice is heard,'Tis the ancestors birth, In the voice of the Lord

Presenter15:22

Sweet Honey in the Rock and Breaths. Bernardine Evaristo, you left home at 18 to live with your boyfriend, and after a year out working at the BBC World Service, you then went to drama school. It was the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama. And that was where you began writing. Tell us about your first play. Described by the principal as the best piece of theatre he'd ever seen. He did! And it was really short. And it was basically an explosion of rage. It was called the N-word. And I jump onto the stage and I shout that word out really loudly. And then I say something like, too black, not black enough, too white, not white enough, and then some other things. And then jump off the stage. So it was really short and it was probably very powerful. Yeah. Obviously, a hugely shocking and powerful word now. Obviously, his response to it was very positive, but probably hadn't seen anything like it before. It really was a very vicious word then. And I was basically saying, this is how I'm seen. This is what I might be called. But where do I stand? Because I'm a mixed-race person. Not a very sophisticated piece of theatre, but punchy.

Presenter16:37

You've described yourself raging against the machine in your twenties. So you were a force to be reckoned with by men. Well, not really. I mean, I like to think I was, but I was a kid. You know, it just feels that I was so young. But, you know, we formed Theatre Black Women, myself, Patricia Saint-Helaire and Paulette Randall. We started the company literally the day we left drama school. We had no experience, and we just said we're not going to get any work because there is no work for us. We felt that we weren't accepted by the mainstream. And it was very much for us to create the story and control the story and to put it out there into the kinds of venues that would attract people who would be interested in our work.

Presenter17:18

That first play that you'd written, which was about being mixed race, I wonder about that facet of who you are and to what extent you've been able to kind of reconcile that and find and create representation for yourself and perhaps for people like you. Yes, it was an issue, I would say, because growing up we were called in the sixties and seventies half caste, and that didn't feel like an insult. That was what mixed race people were called, and then eventually it became mixed race. There were identity issues about, you know, do I really fit into any kind of black culture when I have a white mother?

Presenter17:53

And I wasn't always welcome either in black spaces because I was mixed race. And actually all of that changed when I wrote my second book, Lara, which is based on my family history. And I went into both sides of my family history. I went back to my father's childhood.

Presenter18:10

His ancestors' background in Brazil and I went back to my mother's childhood and her heritage in Ireland and eventually Germany and looked at what it was like to grow up mixed race and through writing that book, which is a novel in verse, fictionalized version of my family history, I reconciled my identity. And I've never looked back from that. I identify as a black woman and I'm happy to claim that as my identity and within that I'm also a mixed race woman or you might say biracial or whatever term is around that comes in the future and I'm very solid in it.

Presenter18:48

It's time to go to the music, Bernadine. What are we going to hear next? Nina Simone, one of my favourite singers. And this song, I wish I knew how it would feel to be free, is a song that still touches my heart today. And when I was working with Theatre Black Women and Patricia St. Hilaire and myself were putting on a production called Silhouette, we'd co-written it and we were both performing in it. It was a two-hander. We used to play this song just before the curtain went up, metaphorically speaking, because there were no curtains because we played in community centers and libraries and so on. But we would be out of sight of the audience and this song would come on and Patricia and I would be miming the song and dancing and then we'd go on stage.

Speaker 419:33

I wish I knew how it would feel to be free.

Speaker 419:41

And wish I could pray

Speaker 419:44

All the chains holding me

Speaker 419:49

I wish I could say all the things that I should say Say them loud, say them clear

Speaker 420:00

Uh

Presenter20:00

For the whole round world

Presenter20:04

I wish

Speaker 420:06

Wish I could share all the love that's in my heart.

Presenter20:10

Uh

Speaker 420:12

Remember. Mm-hmm. Oh the dark

Speaker 420:16

That keeps us apart I wish you couldn't know Uh

Presenter20:23

Yeah.

Presenter20:23

What it means to be me

Speaker 420:27

And You'd see And agree that every man should be free

Presenter20:36

Which

Speaker 420:37

Ha ha

Presenter20:37

That could be.

Speaker 420:38

Uh

Presenter20:38

Nina Simone, and I wish I knew how it would feel to be free. Bernardine Evaristo, you described the 80s as the heyday of your lesbian era. What were you learning about yourself at the time? I knew that was coming.

Presenter20:51

Yeah, it was. I had fun. I was very angry. I was very angry as a woman, you know, because I was feeling like an outsider and sort of understanding how the patriarchy worked and being angry at the injustices against women and then seeing how the feminist movement worked and that was kind of quite exclusionary and didn't really accommodate black women. And I had a period of about 10 years where I lived as a lesbian and that was my identity. And I used to go on lesbian marches and I used to go clubbing and I had lots of relationships. I was very much part of this countercultural black feminist, say, or black womanist community where we were just nurturing each other as well as fighting each other and falling out, of course, and creating our own artistic product. So that when I left that behind, I was, in a sense, very strong as an artist because I had found myself as an artist in a space where there was nobody telling me I couldn't do what I wanted to do and where putting black women at the center was totally normal and accepted. And just to say that in the 80s, a lot of Asian women

Presenter22:06

Also identified as black. So when I say black, I'm actually being very inclusive of a wider range of women of colour. You wrote about your younger self that anger as a default emotion leads to self-immolation. I wonder how important it was for you for your self-preservation to change your outlook, to modify that. Yes. I was angry in my early 20s, I have to say, but definitely by the time I got to my 30s, I didn't feel anger. And I think that's really wise. And I turned that anger into energy. I wouldn't be writing if I was angry. I'm passionate and I care about things and I try to make a difference. But what's driving me is not anger anymore, it's energy. And I think that's very positive. It's time for your next disc, Bernadine. What are we going to hear today and why? I first listened to Ossibisa in the 70s, and the song is called Woya Ya, which means we keep going. And it's about wanting to get somewhere but not knowing how you're going to get there. And I started listening to this song after quite a big gap when I was nominated for the Booker. And it became my kind of Booker anthem because of the lyrics. And the day of the Booker, I had some vodka. This was a couple of hours before the ceremony because I was so nervous. And I put this music on and I was listening to the words and I was singing it and I was dancing around the room and it means so much to me because I've reached this place after so long.

Speaker 423:41

Knows where we are going.

Presenter23:46

Yeah.

Presenter23:50

We will get that

Presenter23:54

Heaven goes how we will get

Presenter23:59

We know we will

Presenter24:09

Our Lord will be

Presenter24:14

Ossibisa and Woo Yo Ya. Bernadine Evaristo, you were already an award winning author by last year, but of course nothing compares to The Booker. How did it feel the moment you heard the news that you'd won?

Presenter24:27

I released a stream of expletives. I literally swore the house down. It was so astonishing and exhilarating. You know, the build-up to it that day had been enormous. And then there's a big banquet, and it just goes on and on and on. And then at 10 o'clock, the announcement is made, and the chair of the judges announced Margaret Atwood. And he said, and there's going to be two. And I was like, oh my God, who's going to be the second person? And the truth is, I wanted that prize so much. I can't be cool about it. I cannot be cool about it. So tell the truth. This is Desert Island Disc. Absolutely. I wanted it so much because I knew it was going to change everything. And so when he said my name, the room exploded, which was really nice. And then I got up, and Margaret got up and she kind of gave me a hug. I think we walked onto the stage hand in hand. Yes. And then she also gave me the podium.

Bernardine Evaristo25:09

That

Bernardine Evaristo25:11

Absolutely.

Bernardine Evaristo25:28

Uh

Presenter25:30

I just thought, wow, that's so generous and so sweet and my feet haven't really touched the ground ever since.

Presenter25:37

Much has been written about the fact that you're the first woman of colour and the first black British author to win the prize, but you're also sharing it. I wonder how you felt about that at the time and how you feel looking back. I don't think I could have been any less happy if I'd have won it on my own, to be honest. I will take the book a prize any way it comes for a start. I'm just happy to have it. And also, she is such a phenomenal woman. I get what other people see, people from outside who think, well, you're the first black woman, you should have got it on your own. And if I wasn't the person who got it, I might think that. But in terms of my feelings, I don't think I would feel any different because it kind of feels I have won it on my own because we've both won it separately. We're not sharing a trophy. We have both won it. And as you say, you know, it has changed everything for you. How do you greet that kind of new ultra-visibility?

Presenter26:31

I really appreciate the fact that I have a much bigger platform for my activism. So whereas before hardly anyone was listening to me, now I just put out a tweet and suddenly it's a quote in a newspaper. I'm like, oh, right, I have the power. And, you know, I am about my community, my writing community. And so I do continue to promote other writers. And when it comes to your activism, Bernadine, how important to you is it that you're now part of the literary establishment?

Presenter27:01

It's very good. I like it, actually. I haven't compromised my politics or my creativity. I feel very much right now in the centre of things, but I'm hopefully changing it from within. And I think we have to be inside the establishment, as well as doing what we do outside of it.

Presenter27:21

Let's have some more music, Bernadine. What are we going to hear next and why have you chosen this today?

Presenter27:25

So Keith Jarrett, I heard him play in the late 70s and I just loved his piano playing. The album that I've chosen is from the Köln concert and it just takes me on an emotional journey every time I listen to it. So 40 years later, I still find that I am emotionally touched by it and I think that is great art.

Presenter28:51

Keith Jarrett from part one of The Cologne Concert.

Presenter28:55

Bernadine Everisto You're a professor of creative writing now, and you tell your students if writers want life long careers they need to be unstoppable. Before the critical acclaim arrived for you, how did you get there?

Presenter29:07

I did what I loved doing. First of all, it was the theatre, and then it was becoming a writer and publishing books, and finding ways to support myself by working in arts management, and then eventually having a portfolio career. I still do write book reviews, I write essays, I do a lot of touring, which is paid, but it's all around literature. And in that way, I was able to support my passion. And I think the key to becoming unstoppable

Presenter29:36

is to do what you love doing and to develop your skills and to never give up.

Presenter29:43

It's time to your penultimate disc. What's it gonna be?

Presenter29:46

It's Bob Dylan and the song is Things Have Changed and I chose it because of my husband. So he is a huge Bob Dylan fan and so I've heard a lot of Bob Dylan since we've been together, since 2006 and this is one of the songs that we enjoy together and we actually sort of dance around to it. The problem is my husband is a comedy dancer. He never dances seriously. So I'm starting to lose my ability to dance. in rhythm because the person I dance most with is somebody who just mucks about. But anyway, this is his favourite Bob Dylan song and I enjoy it too. So it's for David.

Speaker 430:33

Any minute now I'm expecting all hand to play

Speaker 430:41

Uh

Bernardine Evaristo30:41

People are crazy in toxic.

Presenter30:45

I'm locked intact, I'm out of race, I used to cab

Presenter30:51

Things are changed.

Presenter30:58

Bob Dylan, and things have changed. For your husband, David, Bernardine Evaristo, we talked about you being a professor of creative writing at Brunel University, and you're one of only 26 in the UK of 20,000 professors who are black women. And I wonder about that challenge to pass the baton on for better representation, not just when it comes to ethnicity and gender, but class as well. Whose job is coming up with solutions to that? Because I know that, like the writer Marlon James, you've talked about having done your time on diversity panels. I'm not doing any more diversity panels, but I can drop tweets though, which have even more impact actually. There's two things going on. One is the people who most care about change are the people who are most adversely affected by the status quo. And the other thing is that the people who can make the biggest difference are the people in positions of power. And they are the people who may not feel that they are directly adversely affected by the fact that people have been excluded. If we're talking about race, for example, white people need to be on board and to be at least party to the conversations we have around race. Because what happens is when suddenly there is an explosion of Black Lives Matter or whatever else, the institutions then start saying, okay, we're not doing very well in terms of inclusivity. Help us. What do we do? What do we do? But actually.

Bernardine Evaristo31:34

Uh

Speaker 431:34

Yeah.

Presenter32:32

They know what to do. And if they don't know what to do, they need to work it out. Because if the door is shut, what do you do? You open that door. Yet the the reality is that the onus has always put on us, the people who have been shut out.

Presenter32:45

to try and

Presenter32:47

Find a way in, and sometimes it's just not possible. Sometimes the castle doors are just firmly shut, so the door needs to open from the inside.

Presenter32:57

Time for one more disc before we send you to the island. What are we going to hear, Benedine?

Presenter33:01

Public Enemy, Fight the Power. It's about activism, it's about protest, it's stirring, it's energizing, it's celebratory. I think it's a kind of activist's anthem and I absolutely love this song.

Bernardine Evaristo33:18

Enough.

Presenter33:18

And the number, another summer. Sound of the fucking drummer. Music hitting your heart, cause I know you got soul. Listen if you're missing, y'all. Swinging while I'm singing. Giving what you're getting. Knowing what I know in. While the black man's sweating, in the river mom rolling. Gotta give us what we want. Gotta give us what we need. Hey! Our freedom of the.

Speaker 233:42

That's freedom of death. We got the fight that powers that be.

Speaker 233:46

The power!

Presenter33:48

Bye.

Speaker 233:49

Power.

Presenter33:49

Fighting the power.

Presenter33:52

Public enemy and fight the power. Bernardine Evaristo, it's time to cast you away to your island. You'll be separated from friends, family, and life as you know it. How do you feel about the prospect?

Presenter34:03

I will make the best of it. I will use the time to reflect and to become very spiritual and extremely healthy. Lots of exercise, lots of yoga, and lots of time to contemplate. We'll give you the books to take with you: the complete works of Shakespeare, the Bible, and a book of your own choosing. What will you go for?

Presenter34:26

The Norton Anthology of Poetry, which covers a thousand years of verse and has nearly two thousand poems in it. So it'll keep me mentally agile. And it will also be very good for my writing, because I don't read enough poetry these days. You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Presenter34:45

Hologram of my husband. And I can just talk to him. Don't say no. You can talk at him. You won't be able to communicate with. I can imagine, though. Okay. I think that's okay. And finally, if you had to save just one of the eight discs that you've shared with us today from the ravages of island life, which would you go for? It's got to be Keith Jarrett's The Colne concert. I never, never tire of it.

Presenter35:08

Bernardine Evaristo, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you.

Presenter35:25

I'm rather taken with the idea of Bernadine working her way through 1,000 years of poetry while on her island. Hope she doesn't find the hologram of David too distracting. Bernadine is one of many Booker Prize-winning authors who've been cast away. In addition to Margaret Atwood, you'll also find Marlon James, Anne N. Wright, Salman Rushdie, Arendati Roy, and Pat Barker in the Desert Island Discsback catalogue, all available to listen to via BBC Sands. Next time, my guest will be Yusuf Katz Stevens. I do hope you'll join us.

Bernardine Evaristo36:07

My father-in-law lived alone, everybody knew it.

Speaker 436:11

Late afternoon in the high plains of South Africa. A bloody encounter and a chase.

Speaker 436:17

If you attack on a farm, your chances of surviving is not good.

Speaker 436:23

In a community stalked by fear and racial tensions, an explosion of violence puts a family on trial.

Speaker 236:31

What did they do so bad to get that pity?

Speaker 436:35

Bloodlands, presented by me, Andrew Harding, is available on BBC Sounds. Just search for Bloodlands and download all five episodes now.