We're delighted to announce that this year's Visiting Professor of Creative Media will be Bernardine Evaristo.
Bernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize 2019 with her eighth book, Girl, Woman, Other, the first black woman and black British person to win it. The novel went on to become a global bestseller which was translated into nearly forty languages. The author of essays, journalism, literary criticism, poetry and drama, her other books include a memoir, Manifesto, On Never Giving Up (2021) and her award-winning novel, Mr Loverman (2013), adapted into a BAFTA-winning BBC miniseries in 2024. She has received over 90 awards, honours and nominations, including two British Book Awards and the Women's Prize Outstanding Achievement Award in 2025. As a literary activist she has set up many schemes for writers including the Brunel International African Poetry Prize (2012-2022) and the Complete Works Mentoring Scheme to develop poets of colour to publication (2007-2017). Her two ongoing projects, both with the Royal Society of Literature, are the RSL Scriptorium Awards, offering her seaside cottage to writers who need a place to write, and the RSL Pioneer Prize, for a living woman writer over 60. The first recipient was Maureen Duffy in 2025 (b.1933). She is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, an Honorary Fellow of St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford, an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, and a President Emerita of the Royal Society of Literature. www.bevaristo.com
Professor Simon Horobin, Chair of the English Faculty Board, commented: "'I am delighted that Bernardine Evaristo has accepted our invitation to be the 2025-2026 Visiting Professor of Creative Media. The staff and students of the English Faculty are looking forward to welcoming her to Oxford and to hearing what will no doubt be an inspiring lecture."
The Visiting Professorship of Creative Media was established in 1996, as part of a generous benefaction from News UK. As part of the Professorship, Bernardine Evaristo will give a lecture on 6 May at the Sheldonian Theatre. Further details about the lecture will be shared on the English Faculty's events page in the near future. The Creative Media lecture is funded by the News UK endowment.
