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Margaret Atwood, Bernardine Evaristo Share Booker Prize

Evaristo is the first black woman to win the prize since its debut.

The 2019 Booker Prize will be shared by two authors—Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo—for the first time ever. According to The Washington Post, Atwood won for The Testaments—the sequel to her smash-hit book The Handmaid’s Tale—and Evaristo won for her novel Girl, Woman, Other. Evaristo is the first black woman to win the prize since the award debuted in 1969. This is Atwood’s second Booker Prize award, which represents the best book (or books) written in English and published in the U.K. and Ireland. “We found that there were two novels that we desperately wanted to win this year’s prize,” the judges said of this year’s split award. The Testaments had the best opening day sales of 2019 when it was released in September, selling 125,000 copies in the first week. Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other—her eighth book—is set to be released in the U.S. on Dec. 3.