‘Passionate, razor-sharp, brimming with energy and humour, a must-read about modern Britain and womanhood... Dazzling’ - The Booker Judges 2019
Bernardine Evaristo is the award-winning author of eight books of fiction and verse fiction that explore aspects of the African diaspora. Her novel Girl, Woman, Other made her the first Black woman to win the Booker Prize in 2019, as well as winning the Fiction Book of the Year Award at the British Book Awards in 2020, where she also won Author of the Year.
Girl, Woman, Other explores identity, race, womanhood, and what it is to be British through the lives of twelve very different people. Described as a novel for our times, Girl, Woman, Other is both celebratory and elegiac, fiction and social history; it defies genre and the cover should try to reflect that.
If you can, try to read the book in order to get a sense of the writing, this will only help to inspire your design.
Your cover design needs to include all the cover copy supplied and be designed to the specified design template – B format, 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine width 28mm. Please refer to the Submissions Details page for full details of the spec and how to submit your entry.
Copyright must be cleared for all images used in your cover design and you must include a credit line on the back cover of your design for any third-party images used. For example: ‘Cover photograph by Allen Lane’.
We recommend that you read the book before you start on your design in order to get a sense of the themes and of the author’s voice. Girl, Woman, Other is stocked in most bookshops and libraries or, if you would like to be sent a link to download a free digital copy, please register your request here.
Your cover design should encapsulate the essence or key themes of the book in an imaginative, instant and engaging way. To help you get started, we’ve set out the top things to consider when designing a book cover, and what we look for when narrowing down our shortlist. Read more here.
Richard studied Illustration at Falmouth and has an MA in Typography from London College of Printing. After graduating Richard worked in a variety of creative industries including Furniture Design, before embarking on a career in Cover Design firstly at 4th Estate and then with Penguin, where he has worked since 2007. As Art Director for Penguin General, he works on a wide-ranging list of authors including Zadie Smith, Dave Eggers, John le Carré and Alain De Botton.
After graduating from the University of Westminster, Lee took a junior designer position at Harper Collins Publishers. After 19 years, she left her role as Art Director to join Penguin Books as Deputy Art Director to John Hamilton. For the next few years Lee designed and art-directed for both Penguin General and Michael Joseph, on a range of fiction and non-fiction titles. Now, as Art Director for Michael Joseph, she works on a wide range of new talent and established authors including Marian Keyes, Jamie Oliver, Dawn French and Jojo Moyes.
After graduating in Sheffield, Jim took a placement at Bill Smith Studio in London, which turned into a job designing record and CD covers for such labels as EMI, Virgin, BMG, Mute and Trojan Records. Five years later he joined Penguin, where he worked as a cover designer for eighteen months, and then he went to work with Chris Ashworth under Lewis Blackwell at Getty Images for twelve months. In 2001 he returned to Penguin as Art Director of Penguin Press, where he has overseen the redesign and rebranding of Penguin Classics, Penguin Modern Classics and Pelican Books, as well as designing and art-directing covers for Penguin’s Allen Lane hardback imprint, the Particular Books imprint and Penguin non-fiction paperbacks.
Guest Judges to be announced in 2022
