Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Women’s prize outstanding contribution award, speaking in a red and blue academic gown at a lectern inside a historic church, addressing the audience during a graduation ceremony. Sunlight streams through large arched windows behind them, illuminating the seated graduates in black caps and gowns

Bernardine Evaristo speaking at the Rose Bruford College graduation ceremony 2025 | Photo by Paul Cochrane

Rose Bruford College alumna, fellow, and former President Bernardine Evaristo OBE has been named the recipient of the Women’s Prize for Fiction’s Outstanding Contribution Award. This special one-off honour marks the 30th anniversary of the prestigious prize and celebrates Bernardine’s remarkable body of work, her transformative impact on literature, and her lifelong commitment to championing underrepresented voices across the cultural landscape.

A graduate of the Community Theatre Arts programme in 1982, Bernardine co-founded Theatre of Black Women – Britain’s first Black women’s theatre company—alongside fellow alumni Paulette Randall and Patricia St. Hilaire. Since then, she has become a globally celebrated author and a powerful advocate for inclusivity in the arts.

Evaristo’s writing spans multiple genres, and her influence reaches far beyond the page. Over the course of her career, she has received more than 90 awards, nominations, fellowships, and honours—cementing her status as one of the most important literary voices of our time.

Kate Mosse, Women’s Prizes Founder Director, said:

“We felt that Bernardine Evaristo’s beautiful, ambitious and inventive body of work (which includes plays, poetry, essays, monologues and memoir as well as award-winning fiction), her dazzling skill and imagination, and her courage to take risks and offer readers a pathway into diverse and multifarious worlds over a forty-year career, made her the ideal recipient of the Women’s Prize Outstanding Contribution Award. Significantly, Evaristo has consistently used her own magnificent achievements and exceptional talent as a springboard to create opportunities for others, to promote unheard and under-heard women’s voices and to ensure that every female writer feels she has a conduit for her talent. Congratulations to Bernardine and a huge thank you to my fellow judges for such a joyous and celebratory process.”

Watch Bernadine discuss winning the Prize: