Bernardine Evaristo on her book becoming BBC TV series

Bernardine Evaristo’s seminal novel Mr. Loveman, published in 2013, follows a married 74-year-old Antigua-born Londoner who has spent the past 60 years living with The story of his best friend’s secret love.

More than a decade on, the lives of Barrington Jedidiah Walker, his wife Carmel and his lover Maurice De La Rue are brought to the screen in a new eight-part BBC series from Line of Duty ” starring Lennie James.

“I love it. Everything here is absolutely perfect,” Evaristo said, sitting on a brown leather sofa.

booker prize winner Visiting the set of Neasden Studios where the Warkstock Newington home was recreated.

The living room where she sits is filled with knickknacks and family photos, a stark clash of geometric beige wallpaper, turquoise walls and patterned red carpet.

“It’s such a wonderful experience to see a book I’ve written come to life visually.”

Finding herself in a world she originally created on paper seems fitting for one, and she says her favorite thing about writing is being able to “inhabit” her characters.

“When I wrote Mr. Loveman, I was Barrington, and when my husband came home I would say [putting on Barrington’s voice]: “Oh hello honey, would you like something to eat?”

“He would say, ‘Why are you talking like that? Are you OK?'” she said with a laugh.

The protagonist, Barrington (or Barry), is a husband, father and grandfather who moved from Antigua to Hackney, east London, in the 1960s with his devout wife Carmel.

He had lived there ever since, but during this time he had continued a secret affair he had begun with Maurice while in the Caribbean.

Evaristo, 64, said she chose the topic because “everyone knows blast generation Now… we don’t really hear stories about that generation being gay”.

The author said that as a London-born woman of Nigerian descent, she was not afraid to accept such stories because “I am not completely unfamiliar with that world.”

“As a writer, I’m always grabbing people’s attention,” she explains.

“I’m curious, nosy even… I’m surrounded by enough older Caribbean people that I can write these types of characters easily.”

Hackney, the setting for the book, is also a place Evaristo is very familiar with.

She grew up in London and has depicted different parts of the city in many stories, including Hello Mummy, The Emperor’s Baby and Girls, Women, Others – for which she shared the 2019 Booker Prize award.

“I’ve known Hackney since 1979, my family lived there, friends lived there and I worked there.

“So I’ve seen it transform from a very poor, fairly working-class area to now a very expensive, sort of hipster haven,” she said.

As a result, Evaristo said she wanted Mr. Loveman to “capture the Hackney that I remember, when you see these old Caribbean people hanging out and walking down the street, some of them very well-dressed.” .

Hackney has continued to change in the 11 years since the book was published, but the novelist believes that if she were to write the novel now, Barrington, Carmel and Morris would be no different as they lived in “In the bubble”.

“The people around Hackney are changing, but their world, their networks, their social circles, where they live haven’t changed that much, so I don’t think 2024 will really see a community with them. The world of life in Hackney is a different world.

“I didn’t think Barrington would have a cell phone,” she added, then was surprised to notice a computer in the living room.

Evaristo said when the book was published, there were questions about whether it could be adapted into a TV series.

“I believe the work will transfer to the screen – that’s not a problem for me. It might be a problem for other people who don’t think there’s a market for it.

“Someone said to me it was a ‘triple niche’ because he was black, old and gay,” she continued.

“They wouldn’t say that now… but times have changed. We’re more inclusive, we’re more progressive, and hopefully that will continue for a long time to come.”

The author felt so close to the characters she created that it was an “adventure” to see how they developed for the first screen adaptation of her work.

As for the reception she hopes the series will have, Evaristo said she wants people to “obviously love it” but also “feel like they’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“I want people to feel like they have some understanding of the lives of people they may not be familiar with.”

All episodes of Mr. Loveman will be available on BBC iPlayer The first two parts of the series air on BBC One later that evening, starting at 06:00 BST on 14 October