Brunel Professor awarded OBE in Queen's Birthday Honours

Bernardine Evaristo, joint winner of the 2019 Booker Prize and a Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, was today awarded an OBE for her ‘services to literature’ in the Queen’s birthday honours list 2020. The OBE caps off an exceptional 12 months of success for Evaristo who only last October became the first black woman to win the prestigious Booker Prize; for her latest novel ‘Girl, Woman, Other’. In June this year, during the height of the Black Lives matter protests, Evaristo became the first woman of colour to reach #1 in the UK paperback fiction charts. In total, 1495 people have been honoured in the Queen's Birthday list.  Also of Hillingdon acclaim, Alan Frank Pannell, who served as the director of the Boys Brigade London District for 9 years, has been awarded a BEM for ‘services to the community in the London Borough of Hillingdon’.