Mr Loverman

French Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly homosexual, lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris.

Bernardine Evaristo can take any story from any time and turn it into something vibrating with life

This riproaring, full-bodied riff on sex, secrecy and family is Bernardine Evaristo's seventh book. If you don't yet know her work, you should - she says things about modern Britain that no one else does

Transforms our often narrow perceptions of gay men in England . . . Comical, agonising and, ultimately, moving

Evaristo has a lot going on in this unusual urban romance , but beneath her careful study of race and sexuality is a beautiful love story . Not many writers could have two old men having sexual intercourse in a bedsit to a soundtrack of Shabba Ranks's Mr Loverman and save it from bad taste, much less make it sublime . But the hero of this book, and his canny creator, make everything taste just fine

An undeniably bold and energetic writer, whose world view is anything but one-dimensional

Audacious genre-bending, in-yer-face wit and masterly retellings of underwritten corners of history are the hallmarks of Evaristo's wit

Heartbreaking yet witty, this is a story that needed to be told

I loved this novel. Barrington is flamboyant, complex and in love with his childhood friend Morris. It really makes you think of all the stories, forbidden and forgotten, from the elders who made England their home

Bernardine Evaristo, MBE , is the award-winning author of eight books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora.

Her novel Girl, Woman, Other made her the first black woman to win the Booker Prize in 2019, as well winning the Fiction Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 2020, where she also won Author of the Year, and the Indie Book Award. She also became the first woman of colour and black British writer to reach No.1 in the UK paperback fiction chart in 2020.

In 2025 she was awarded the Women's Prize Outstanding Contribution Award. Her other awards and honours include an MBE in 2009 and an OBE in 2020. Her writing spans reviews, essays, drama and radio, and she has edited and guest-edited national publications, including The Sunday Time's Style magazine.

Bernardine is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London, and President of the Royal Society of Literature. She lives in London with her husband.
www.bevaristo.com