The pioneering writer Bernardine Evaristo said she was “surprised” to receive a one-time Outstanding Contribution Award to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Women’s Novel Award.

Evaristo, the first black woman to win the prestigious Booker Award when she shared the award with Margaret Atwood in 2019, told the BBC: “This (award) is not within anyone’s scope…I feel very lucky.”

The honor is in honor of her career – which includes the novel "Girls, Women" she won the booking, and her long-standing advocacy for inclusion and diversity in the art.

Evaristo will receive a bonus of £100,000 and sculpture.

Both will be introduced at a ceremony in London on June 12, which will also announce the winners of the 2025 Women’s Novel and Nonfiction Awards.

Evaristo said she will invest the bonus in a project that supports other female writers and will provide more details in the fall.

"I did this because I was a multimillionaire," she joked. "It feels right to put it in. We should support each other."

The writer said her advocacy work has been recognized by the Women’s Awards, which is “incredible validation.”

“Women’s novels are in a very bad place at the beginning of (award charity). They shine every year… and help expand women’s voices.”

Evaristo co-founded the first Black Women Theatre company in the UK, Black Women's Theatre, which ran from 1982 to 1988.

She also established the Development Bureau of Communication Lyrics Writers, the "Complete Work Guidance Program for the Poets of Color" and the Brunel International African Poetry Award. She was appointed as a literary service in 2009.

The 66-year-old said she started her own activist work in the 1980s “just because she needed it.”

"At the time, it wasn't my creativity. I did it because I knew I wanted to take responsibility and be the change I wanted to see. I did it because it needed to do it."

It is important not to take a break because “if we don’t keep up with the momentum, then the status quo may be closer to ourselves again”, she said.

“It’s not where we can say ‘we achieve this, we can give it up’.”

There is currently a kind of "opposition against women who have won more than a century of freedom".

“There is always a risk of rebound.”

She won't be attracted to her next writing project because "it's unwise to announce things too early", but she says she still has time to juggle her writing and activist work.

"I've been here for a long time...I've been doing things for a long time! My main focus is my writing. I'm a writer and have to do a lot of things...creating tensions. That's how I work.

"I'm good at cubicle . But I've been working all the time. My husband and I are 18 years old and we went on our first holiday three years ago!"

But she said that was because “I like my job.”

"I work on weekends, there is no difference between weekdays and weekends. I don't need to stay away from my work. It's positive energy."

The Women’s Award Foundation said it aims to celebrate and expand the voice of women. A viable career for women from all backgrounds; and promotes original work.

The Contribution Awards judging panel includes critic and writer Bonnie Greer, broadcaster Vick Hope and writer Kate Mosse.

"Bernardine Evaristo's beautiful, ambitious, creative work, dazzling skills and imagination, and her adventures and avenues for readers to diversify and multi-world throughout their 40-year career make her an ideal recipient.

“It is important that Evaristo has been using his grand achievements and outstanding talents as a springboard to create opportunities for others, promote unheard and heard female voices, and ensure that every female writer feels talented.”

Evaristo was born in Wolvech, southeast London, the fourth of eight children, a British mother and a Nigerian father. Her father was a welder and a local labor MP. Her mother is a teacher.

She spent her teenage years at Greenwich Young's Theatre and then studied at Goldsmiths at the University of London, where she earned her PhD in Creative Writing.

She is currently the President of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) and a professor of creative writing at Brunel University in London.

Her other creative works include her 2013 novel Loverman, which tells the story of an elderly man who collapses after a long relationship with a male friend.

It was adapted into a BBC TV series starring Lennie James and recently won two major performance awards at the BAFTA TV Awards.

Evaristo's other books include the satirical novels "The Roots of Blonde" and "Memoirs", "The Manifesto: Never Give Up."