It is “total nonsense” for authors to be accused of cultural appropriation for writing about other cultures, the first black female winner of the Booker Prize has said.

Bernadine Evaristo won this year’s Booker prize, along with Margaret Atwood, for her novel Girl, Woman, Other which follows 12 black and mixed-race characters.

Speaking at the Hay Festival winter weekend, Ms Evaristo said authors should not be told to “stay in their lane” adding that it is ridiculous to be expected not to write “beyond your own culture”.

The author, 60, has dismissed the idea that being curious about other cultures and engaging with them artistically is some sort of injustice, and refused to be pigeonholed by her own race.

Her Booker-winning work follows the lives of people from their teenage years to their 90’s, with a range of gender attitudes, sexuality, class and background.

The novelist, reports The Times, said : “This whole idea of cultural appropriation, which is where you are not supposed to write beyond your own culture and so on, is ridiculous. Because that would mean that I could never write white characters or white writers can never write black characters.