Lara: The Family Is Like Water

Lara is a powerful semi-autobiographical novel-in-verse based on Bernardine Evaristo's own childhood and family history. The eponymous Lara is a mixed-race girl raised in a white suburb of London, during the 60s and 70s. Her father is Nigerian, and her mother is white British. Lara is the fourth of eight children and we follow her journey to adulthood from London to Nigeria to Brazil as she seeks to understand herself and her ancestry. This is a new edition of Lara, rewritten and expanded by a third since its first publication in 1997.