Evaristo lists her influences as including The Bone People by Keri Hulme
, Mama Day by Gloria Naylor
, The Famished Road by Ben Okri
, The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
,...
Keri Hulme
's novelThe Bone People was published in England. It won the Booker Prize over the objections of Nina Bawden
, who hated its depiction of violence to a child.