Bernardine Evaristo’s The Emperor’s Babe: An Account of Roman London from the Black British Perspective

The Emperor’s Babe goes back in time to consider the experiences of Africans living in Britain during the Roman occupation. Working within an Afrocentric feminist framework, Bernardine Evaristo “turn[s] history on its head” and presents an alternative version of Roman history informed by Gilroy’s Black Atlantic and the scholarship of intellectuals like Peter Fryer, Ivan Van Sertima, and George M. James, scholars who share ideological views antithetical to the Western hegemonic intellectual tradition of ancient Greco-Roman historiography. Evaristo challenges the prevailing notion that Britain became multicultural in the twentieth century, and more significantly, acknowledges the presence and significant historical contributions of Africans in ancient Britain.