Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Lara
    Lara
    Lara
    Ebook267 pages2 hours

    Lara

    By Bernardine Evaristo

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Lara is a powerful semi-autobiographical novel-in-verse based on Bernardine Evaristo's own childhood and family history. The eponymous Lara is a mixed-race girl raised in Woolwich, a white suburb of London, during the 60s and 70s. Her father, Taiwo, is Nigerian, and her mother, Ellen, is white British. They marry in the 1950s, in spite of fierce opposition from Ellen's family, and quickly produce eight children in ten years. Lara is their fourth child and we follow her journey from restricted childhood to conflicted early adulthood, and then from London to Nigeria to Brazil as she seeks to understand herself and her ancestry. The novel travels back over 150 years, seven generations and three continents of Lara's ancestry. It is the story of Irish Catholics leaving generations of rural hardship behind and ascending to a rigid middle class in England; of German immigrants escaping poverty and seeking to build a new life in 19th century London; and of proud Yorubas enslaved in Brazil, free in colonial Nigeria and hopeful in post-war London. Lara explores the lives of those who leave one country in search of a better life elsewhere, but who end up struggling to be accepted even as they lay the foundations for their children and future generations. This is a new edition of Bernardine Evaristo's first novel Lara, rewritten and expanded by a third since its first publication in 1997.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloodaxe Books
    Release dateMar 27, 2014
    ISBN9781780370361
    Lara
    Author

    Bernardine Evaristo

    Bernardine Evaristo is the 2019 winner of the Booker Prize for Girl, Woman, Other, and the author of seven other books that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her writing spans the genres of verse fiction, short fiction, poetry, essays, literary criticism, journalism, and radio and theater drama. Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London, and Vice President of the Royal Society of Literature, and was named an OBE in 2020. She lives in London with her husband. @BernardineEvari www.bevaristo.com

    Read more from Bernardine Evaristo

    Related to Lara

    Related ebooks

    Literary Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Cherie Jones

      Jan 7, 2021

      Cherie Jones
      3 min read

    • Article

      How High We Go In The Dark

      Dec 29, 2021

      ▸ RELEASED 18 JANUARY 304 pages | Hardback/ebook ▸ Author Sequoia Nagamatsu ▸ Publisher Bloomsbury There are surprisingly few SF stories about death. Sure, many books and films kill off characters. But only a handful – like Tarkovsky’s Solaris, or Te

      1 min read

    • Article

      Akwaeke Emezi

      May 28, 2021

      Akwaeke Emezi
      6 min read

    • Article

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women

      Jan 25, 2018

      Jenny Diski's Curious Women
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Chantal V. Johnson

      Dec 2, 2022

      Chantal V. Johnson reflects on 2022 through the books she read. The post A Year in Reading: Chantal V. Johnson appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Jul 25, 2022

      Books
      6 min read

    • Article

      Chouette

      Nov 12, 2021

      Chouette
      16 min read

    • Article

      Ocean Vuong: ‘I Don’t Believe A Writer Should Just Keep Writing As Long As They’re Alive’

      Jun 3, 2023

      Ocean Vuong, 34, is an American poet and novelist born in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and raised in Hartford, Connecticut. His 2016 debut poetry collection, Night Sky With Exit Wounds, won the TS Eliot prize and Forward prize in 2017. His debut novel,

      4 min read

    • Article

      She’s No Saint

      Jul 3, 2022

      She’s No Saint
      2 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Max Porter

      Dec 6, 2019

      I would have been lost this year (as any other) without poetry to cling to and travel with. The post A Year in Reading: Max Porter appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Bryan Washington

      Dec 3, 2018

      1. This year, I read a lot on my phone. That’s a habit I’ve picked up from working gigs where you stand a bunch (watching kids on a swingset, watching adult children park their cars). Some folks don’t vibe with that, but those folks don’t pay my bill

      4 min read

    • Article

      Lust, Loss, and Liberation in Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’

      Jun 1, 2023

      Maybe this novel is a Bildungsroman about freedom, with young Katharina its hero and the West her inevitable liberation? The post Lust, Loss, and Liberation in Jenny Erpenbeck’s ‘Kairos’ appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      For Snow Queens Who Have Considered Suicide Because Paul Newman in the First Twenty Minutes of Paris Blues Is Too Much

      Jun 14, 2022

      But I start with the great Sidney Poitier because his stardom was an established part of the Freedom movement in 1964, and he was to be the chaperone of my inner awakening that dramatic year. Indianapolis, my hometown, had some brave marches and two

      10 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Steph Opitz

      Dec 17, 2018

      I put down a lot of books that didn’t do it for me, and shuffled and reshuffled my to-be-read pile to my heart’s content. It’s been liberating. The post A Year in Reading: Steph Opitz appeared first on The Millions.

      6 min read

    • Article

      Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

      Mar 4, 2017

      The Nigerian author of the best seller Americanah is out with a new book, Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions

      2 min read

    • Article

      Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists

      Apr 1, 2020

      The 35 books on this year's fiction and poetry longlists represent 20 different countries and feature authors writing in 18 languages. The post Best Translated Book Awards Names 2020 Longlists appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Lording

      Jun 14, 2022

      It’s 4:38 P.M., eight minutes after I usually go home, but now I’m rooting around under my chair cushion, double-checking my shirt pocket, hunting for an unmarked baggie of white bars, which I shouldn’t have left in my office, which I shouldn’t have

      17 min read

    • Article

      Compelling Characters

      Jul 1, 2020

      Beach Read by Emily Henry (Berkley) January Andrews and Augustus Everett couldn’t be more different. January is a bestselling romance author, and Augustus writes highbrow literary fiction. But when they both find themselves with writers’ block and li

      1 min read

    • Article

      Her Dark Material

      Feb 7, 2021

      Paradise Beach, Barbados, in the 1980s. The powdery sand is the palest pink, the water is the regulation limpid blue, the coconut palms sway, but behind the tourist postcard lies another world, a mostly black world of poverty, violence and desperatio

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Lara

    4/5

    3 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Lara - Bernardine Evaristo

      (cbook_preview_excerpt.html[rFvN(H#(ZQ|tzdIn@V!H(?xc#W̟K|D T۽Īq{2SӋB]]ߨ~?WeԼT/tViuTk*{gonJkj3';Z2ݚBZPPڨgP(/ ֕u{UKL}Vjd!hs668\V޻O jku Ua~?|۾P&`:,Խ_pk1j||9S3q`;ۖ콪t{.|_m6|Y[~4{:**ƈ| 4=2vSvx2 7:`0Ŏ|2>+c 9\c2y0mlO}v{LuwLi|'ٍhҭja֘m˯@tɬq냉us)0 _ i^Vᛠ˷q J66AӦmZ^0uJ0Hb槩V]S+Dko3zy> }@򶴍Lihl.$6#Ē& "kz$-|P|]^i3 "}S |ƍF0Ji$DZ+A]$}Hq A2},=)bböEdTt$] Ūls-bRn3D,):+x3ƚbqH-oF\~7;m;Zq-(Nr N[|霘9C.)o/'~I8Z o! +.<}b.~}?~KB}`)Z3+L(:R1t>J1F"T*"bnX421>wGTFTVWٺƲvϕaGY1h̖}2u'HTtQ;1.|X5ΰj6Gkn8#=Oߦl6=,M,XzfT1~U^!M忾W::k={Zw-zיFl!}^6^Zq&KP*R5j;_E}$$*/on9]w7^ܞL>WuJZݫ+e/-p0qHp!KuvswToWW之ƎO_s;:uSV_ݼe:]r]3tըo i0m 7J :']._Nn+J[Plz]e=Z‡޷tDFyN,)' yW5Z㫧RsUZ=11|[o!HHT؈`G؈a{ENG*ۓ,yl )lDc1#/YƉ䧴&} б. ++B|@5Od/K+xk˾"BfE桇_ I>3ZY~.<|Q G8B=IVXlJl( 7s$k͸+)4-0 J~1wf!"VxnxrVܚu`'6{ C d<0{"+uR ˾~rJAd1\RQZZI@݊J=|I~ ",,ff莱 Y,S HЖ1,U(uy})>PX|8֤O!~md s̨ ~wQrG9@R*-. Ak]oAF^[6MZe=:6YEHؾ)%|t_? vh3#Cf%MgL8SUIt"-JVP|G#̉5_zT#-#}wPAe'jgvS~*֢y֤Ͷ4?3. Mg[]lG\F(֓`[NkGDIQ!H"NW;c9MV _1WEDl"y8kInMB-鄍 _/ǚ!&5z4{:" k|MAl,KJ5l(AԽpy"d6t5`d4g.H,EhV83*-l~mQ$p0bЈ5>wRMH\g&V *x&H+R5cd릆y2.8W;ҹB֒:'liJX$*[1boHHݖ؜vu^x<1mT=J'cjMnbHPLo_wy"ա>\Ƕ5Qɴvׇ-jRB+XT6):jKQ,0E`#6ԦeәCjy٣N,"b} b Dvam@Cv-w\k*(AESyS%/شI`;R4#=pcm-Ʋ@ω38>>l}; 5 /Z*KnxB6-PwkR:!C 5Pg%.*9w+r{4n%R|vK!ލAaW2! P~qUu?E<ǀ٫̓^L gJ[XC:0E OvJLlC$"=i.S$~W/$TxΕMvmg$1>KhJ*iS\#aWeoz<?VZ! (b1c18L>-xDc褎`(\!BdCܷ&.GMV(Hf}W#8yEOQl׾`y;8dĵLUw0ĎgľGYODX Λ;إ5ѶNdžX*KT"j *N~۟LjTyjy3zٞH;#fo g=(<,Ԯ73oԟt;4?\#oQP_F Ԩ8ḯ<8NM Lo PZ(`(x:.ÒzK0]QVa -"?I+m҂{:bKQO: -\`YG@>QS";b2?cFy "~zFCZ[!|QXOU_bӵT0WJt8( z)6S0nU(FХ5rjP Jw(Wo@S[* lRk™7}b(.%ωd:JNʑzݷM߳qjςrPX gvPԹT؅TKlcr(ewSJWo#l,AJ,*"c -9~s=ʱ%_ Q}icW&Sozexy-iu#(&{]h9\SrQgA`ә )yBqSs Nɬ}יmOlh.wJtE%a$p:dZ #86]HĿ1`_A7.%FCM)-#p~0Y>.A?kY.4|trNݮǂŕf tE[]؄'."{z~iWh3 DuԤ}ni/]巉͵>я!,`7OavLn-LQ4!HD&fJotOw,e>#$X].Bߪ S?~{ dh^s|B=R1τ(ͤL`+1QU 7(H"GyiC߰ڑ`txc*vFZltH`OgA!qVFJrw%zpJL|Chlǰ⿙gYn` ;Ġi|ُZi}8r~!_*5CI!gJ_S4d8MxTcv]ЉP=g7rB{:hgl)gCTqƋS˕(D1;Oo!E݉x02qGq*ӥv"W,~Z1}xwd8;8Տx{4;l^ƕ[U;;vzuߙ&Y5^Oȫ|\nZyDgIt`63&\,}9:RX|nfZ׃չmyDR;b@-E{}?ɵo:G6}!,| 7Pts)nyIfB)$(GA&N7J1 oD/ ՙFqWRmc`rCtG 5vqB'L.U3Jރ<&Aaݝ}GjFXE(L/qᬙ"I^դ
      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1