First black woman to win top literary prize says cultural appropriation is ‘total nonsense’
Bernardine Evaristo, the first black woman to win the Booker Prize for fiction writing, dismissed the idea that artists cannot engage in “cultural appropriation.”
Evaristo, 60, was one of two 2019 Booker Prize winners, an annual award given to the author of an “outstanding fiction” work written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Evaristo spoke about the book that won her the award, Girl, Woman, Other, and how it would have been impossible without “cultural appropriation” at the Hay Festival Winter Weekend on Friday, according to The Times.
“This whole idea of cultural appropriation, which is where you are not supposed to write beyond your own culture and so on, is ridiculous,” Evaristo said. “That would mean that I could never write white characters or white writers can never write black characters. Look in television; that happens all the time. But there is this idea that when it comes to fiction that you are supposed to stay in your lane. It is a total nonsense.”
Evaristo’s book follows the lives of a dozen either black or mixed-race people. One girl, named Megan, grows up and identifies as non-binary and changes “their” name to Morgan. Evaristo said that writing about Megan was “a sensitive area” because the character could offend people.
Evaristo said, however, that she is not overly worried about offending others with her work.
“That’s not my primary concern because you don’t know who is going to be offended by anything you write. I refuse to construct some kind of character who is going to appease everybody,” Evaristo said.
Article via WashingtonExaminer