Who is
Zadie Smith?
Tuesday, 17 October 2017
Books Unlocked October 2017 - Black History Month
Novelist Zadie Smith was born in North London in
1975 to an English father and a Jamaican mother. She studied English at
Cambridge, graduating in 1997. Her celebrated first
novel, White Teeth (2000),
published when Smith was only 24, examines amongst many
other topics, cultural identity, history, faith, and future. Her novel won several awards and
prizes, has been translated into over twenty languages and adapted for
television broadcast. The same for my
personal favourite, Smith’s novel NW
(2012) which was also adapted for broadcast in 2016. The setting for Smith’s novels are the suburbs of North-West London: Harlesden,
Neasden, Kilburn, Wembley and in particular, Willesden. Her books resonate with me not only because
this is where I grew up, but because she reflects both sides of “my” London in
her literature. A pulsing, effervescent city, full of life and opportunity
against the tension between the have and have nots.
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