The Emperor’s Babe is an irreverent and salacious romp that merges together tradition and contemporaneity in a startlingly unique way. Published almost 20 years before Girl, Woman, Other, The Emperor’s Babe offers a distinctively different Evaristo. When not slyly winking at the reader who is equal parts befuddled and delighted, this Evaristo reveals the years of genre and narrative waywardness it took to mould her distinctive brand of literary experimentation for popular success.

Here are 7 lesser-known historical fiction novels that could do with a bit more buzz. Stories situated in Black history occupy a difficult position in the media landscape. On the one hand, the prevalence of slavery and other such trauma narratives evidences the market’s appetite for Black pain. On the other, history is always told from the perspective of the hunter: “we need the lion to tell it as well,” says Dahlma Llanos-Figueroa in her interview with us.