Part coming-of-age story and part how-to manual, the book is, above all, one of the most down-to-earth and least self-aggrandizing works of self-reflection you could hope to read. Evaristo’s guilelessness is refreshing, even unsettling.

Throughout, the book deftly combines the personal and the political.

Manifesto, which could otherwise be called Portrait of the Artist as a Young Black Woman, is a much needed accounting of a Black woman's coming of age through the journey of creating a profoundly authentic creative life.

... offers unalloyed insights into the making of a writer, illuminating the artistic journey of the author in an important and refreshing perspective on publishing and creativity in Britain in the last 40 years.

Fans of Evaristo's work will discover in Manifesto the passionate core of this unstoppable force in 21st-century literature.

Herein lies the primary aim of Evaristo’s work: to give everyone a feeling of belonging, especially those who are underrepresented. To this end, the memoir concludes with a passionate plea from Evaristo—titled the 'Evaristo Manifesto'—for creatives to 'have the opportunity to create, share & consume stories that reflect their cultures & communities, so that we all feel equally validated.' Evaristo’s memoir serves as proof of how one writer found her place in the world through storytelling, giving artists a roadmap to a deeper understanding of their own lives through the act of creating..

Manifesto is the sturdy, exuberant memoir of a writer who, in pushing herself, also pushed an entire field. Four decades and eight novels into her career, Evaristo became an 'overnight success' in 2019, when her polyphonic Girl, Woman, Other won the Booker Prize. Her unconventional path is laid out here in breezy prose.

... lively and important.

Evaristo offers her own story.

... combines the personal with the practical to powerful effect.

One of the most charming aspects of the book is that [Evaristo] starts every chapter with Old English, Yoruba, Irish, German and Portuguese translations of the chapter number — the languages her ancestors spoke.

If 'perseverance is genius in disguise,' then Bernardine Evaristo is a 22-carat gold, diamond-encrusted genius. She is the patron saint of persistence and proves it with her ninth book.

This kind of ad-speak for equality pops up often in this book.

... both a candid account of how it felt to grow up as the child of a biracial marriage in a racist British society and a refreshingly honest portrait of the highs and lows of the artistic existence.

What a fascinating life Evaristo has led.

Evaristo details the journey between her fraught beginnings and her career triumphs, and the result is part memoir and part meditation on determination, creativity, and activism. She writes with welcome candor and clarity about her biracial heritage, her fledgling early career in theater, and her rocky romantic relationships with both men and women. The author’s passion and commitment to community especially shine through in her guidance to writers at all levels about the importance of envisioning the best outcomes for themselves and for their work—and protecting themselves from naysayers.

Though her personal narrative movingly speaks to themes of racism, sexism, classism, and homophobia and how she overcame them, Evaristo’s writing occasionally falls into platitudes.