We are delighted to announce a very special event with one of the UK’s most celebrated contemporary authors, Bernardine Evaristo.

Bernardine will be in conversation with Yomi Ṣode at Chiswick House & Gardens on Saturday 14 October. The event takes place as part of Chiswick House & Gardens’ Black Chiswick through History project which works with local community groups to research the Black presence and global connections at the House and Gardens. Chiswick House & Gardens is one of the UK’s most glorious examples of 18th-century British architecture and landscaped gardens.

The culmination of this year’s Black Chiswick through History public programme, the event has been organised this October to mark and celebrate Black History Month. Evaristo will discuss her writing and its engagement with the African diaspora, exploring how history impacts individual lives, particularly the weighty legacy of Empire.

Bernardine Evaristo is the author of ten books and numerous writings spanning the genres of fiction, verse, non-fiction, poetry, essays, criticism and drama. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other (Penguin, 2019) won the Booker Prize, making her the first Black woman and Black British person to win it in its 50-year history. Her most recent books are both non-fiction: Manifesto: On Never Giving Up (Penguin, 2021) and Look Again: Feminism (Tate Galleries/Tate Publishing 2021) – a survey of the representation of women of colour in British art. Her work has been translated into over 40 languages and she is currently the 19th President of the Royal Society of Literature.

Yomi Ṣode is an award-winning Nigerian British writer. His debut collection Manorism, published by Penguin in October 2022 alongside a stage adaptation at the Southbank Centre, was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023 and the T S Eliot Prize 2022.

A selection of books will be on sale and the talk will be followed by book-signing with Bernardine Evaristo.

Priority booking for our Members opens at 10am on Friday 18 August. Tickets go on general sale at 10am on Friday 24 August.

The Black Chiswick through History project is kindly supported by English Heritage Shout Out Loud, Art Fund and The Linbury Trust.