Bernardine Evaristo (image source: WikiMedia)
Diversity is seen in the context of work in terms of usability and increased performance. The more diverse a team is, the more productive it is, it is said. Yet diversity has long been a reality and an integral part of our society.
With this novel, Bernardine Evaristo manages to show different aspects of diversity as a matter of course, uses 12 main characters to show how biographies affect choices and also opportunities, and encourages a self-confident approach to the self. The framework for the narrative is the premiere of a play in London. Cleverly placed clues and commentary are used to frame and understand statements differently, and poetic writing with page-turns also supports this brilliantly written work in expressing self-evident otherness. This novel informs about diverse lifestyles without being preachy.
Why a book tip on the site of this EU project? Bernardine Evaristo’s novel opens up an emotional, comprehensible approach to what it must feel like to be discriminated against and thereby legitimizes, from a societal perspective, the approaches that this project seeks to realize.