Hackney, where the book is based, is also somewhere Evaristo knows very well.
Having grown up in London, she has featured different parts of the city in many of her stories, including Hello Mum, The Emperor’s Babe, and Girl, Woman, Other – for which she jointly won the Booker Prize in 2019.
“I have known Hackney since 1979 and I’ve had family living there, friends living there, I’ve worked there.
“So I have seen it transition from an area that was quite poor, quite working class… to an area that’s now very expensive and is a bit of a hipster heaven,” she says.
As such, Evaristo says she wanted Mr Loverman “to capture the Hackney that I remember when you would see these old Caribbean people hanging out, walking down the street – some of these old Caribbean men were very flamboyant dressers”.
