Bernardine Evaristo’s ‘Black’ British Amazons: Aesthetics and Politics in Girl, Woman, Other (2019)

Abstract

In Girl, Woman, Other, Bernardine Evaristo writes about ‘black’ British women in order to give them more visibility and, possibly, a voice, within British literature and British history. The primarily ‘black’ British women, whose stories are told, face stereotypes and their bodies are reduced to a certain number of roles that are determined by a society that ostracises them. Nevertheless, these characters manage to ‘re‑configure’ the ‘distribution of the sensible’ by showing, and using, ‘willfulness’, therefore making them political subjects. These ‘black’ British women also ‘re‑configure’ Britain’s post‑colonial space, by moving from the margins to the very centre of the novel. We use the writings of philosophers Jacques Rancière and Sara Ahmed on dissensus, ‘the distribution of the sensible’, the concepts of ‘willfulness’ and anger. We analyse how these women position themselves within the realm of dissensus, which leads to the foregrounding of voices that have long been silenced.

Keywords

• ‘black’ British literature
• ‘distribution of the sensible’
• aesthetics
• politics
• willfulness
• anger/rage