Award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo to give keynote speech at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s online conference

Frankfurt, 5 October 2020 – Award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo will be a keynote speaker at Frankfurter Buchmesse’s online conference, heading up the Publishing Insights track that takes place online at www.buchmesse.de/conference2020 on Wednesday, 14 October 2020. The British author, who was awarded the 2019 Booker Prize, will address the topics of diversity and inclusion in publishing in her keynote speech.

Bernardine Evaristo, MBE, is the award-winning author of several books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other (published by Hamish Hamilton) won the Booker Prize in 2019 and the Fiction Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 2020. Furthermore, the former US President Barack Obama included it in his list of 19 favourite books of 2019. In June 2020, she also won Author of the Year, as well as becoming the first woman of colour and black British writer to assume No.1 in the UK Sunday Times paperback fiction chart. Her writing spans reviews, essays, drama and radio, and she has edited and guest-edited national publications, including The Sunday Times Style magazine. Bernardine Evaristo is Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University, London, and Vice Chair of the Royal Society of Literature.

The Publishing Insights track on 14 October (3 pm to 5.30 pm (CEST)), at which Bernardine Evaristo will be speaking, is part of the book fair’s online Frankfurt Conference series. The other conference tracks are: Academic & Scholarly (12 October 2020), Rights & Licensing (13 October 2020) and Audio (15 October 2020). Further speakers of Frankfurt Conference include James Daunt, CEO of Barnes & Noble and Managing Director of Waterstones; Ananth Padmanabhan, CEO of HarperCollins Publishers India; Núria Cabutì, CEO Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial; Jonathan Karp, President & Chief Executive Officer, Simon & Schuster; Sophie de Closets, CEO Fayard; Jenny Fry, Commercial Director at Canongate; renowned literary agents Andrew Nurnberg and Anna Soler-Pont; Magnus Nytell, Head of International Expansion at Nextory; Bookwire’s Global Head of Audio, Videl Bar-Kar; Eva Kirstine Lægdsgaard, Co-founder & Chief of Strategic Relations, Podimo; Javier Celaya, CEO of Dosdoce.com; Julie MacKay, Director of International Content Acquisition, Scribd; Kristiina Hormia-Poutanen, Director of Library Network Services at the National Library of Finland; Dr. Paul Ayris, Pro-Vice-Provost at UCL Library Services, and many more.

The timetable of the Publishing Insights track, as well as the entire conference programme and list of speakers, can be found here: www.buchmesse.de/conference2020

Participation in Frankfurt Conference and the book fair’s entire digital professional programme is free of charge. To access the livestreams, please visit www.buchmesse.de/conference2020 and log into My Book Fair: https://services.book-fair.com/login/external

A press photo of Bernardine Evaristo is available here for download (copyright: © Jennie Scott): https://mvb.cloud.booklan.de/index.php/s/HYHP4fZBsJHKBSG

Contact for the media:
Press & Corporate Communication, Frankfurter Buchmesse
Katja Böhne, Vice President Marketing & Communications, Phone: +49 (0) 69 2102-138, press@buchmesse.de
Kathrin Grün, Head of Communications, Phone: +49 (0) 69 2102-170, gruen@buchmesse.de
Ines Bachor, PR Manager, Phone: +49 (0) 69 2102-189, bachor@buchmesse.de