Last night, the BBC was at the receiving end of a storm on Twitter when a presenter failed to name Bernardine Evaristo in a reference to the Booker Prize she shared with Margaret Atwood. The presenter, who is male and white, named Atwood but described Evaristo as “another author.” The gaffe came during a live broadcast of the Turner Prize, which this year was also shared among four artists.
“Now, this is a bit different from the Booker Prize earlier in the year where the judges couldn’t make up their minds,” began the presenter, Shaun Ley, “so they gave it to Margaret Atwood and another author, who shared the prize between them.”
A clip of the video was uploaded to Twitter by Booklove Multicultural Travelling Book Carnival, a campaign group which promotes diversity in literature.
@BBCNews "Booker Prize was shared between Margaret Atwood& "ANOTHER AUTHOR". FFS @BBCNews u cud NOT BE BOTHERED to say who "The Author is" She has a name-its @BernardineEvari Not ANOTHER AUTHOR! @sunnysingh_n6 it's still happening, she's become the"other Author".Not good enough! pic.twitter.com/zOzPz0HUZi
— Booklove Multicultural Travelling Book Carnival (@thisisbooklove) December 3, 2019
Evaristo herself retweeted it. “How quickly and casually they have removed my name from history – the first black woman to win it,” she said. “This is what we’ve always been up against, folks.”
She appealed to her followers to retweet.
https://twitter.com/BernardineEvari/status/1202103687231016960
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