Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith FRSL is an English novelist, essayist, and short story writer...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 October 1975
book people battle
I like books that expose me to people unlike me and books that do battle against caricature or simplification. That, to me, is the heroic in fiction.
book house mum
I don't keep any copies of my books in the house - they go to my mum's flat. I don't like them around.
growing-up fiction changed
English fiction was something I loved growing up, and it changed my life - it changed the trajectory of my life.
girl nerd get-money
Don't we all know why nerds do what they do? To get money, which leads to popularity, which leads to girls.
artist errors politician
Any artist who aligns themselves with a politician is making a category error because what politicians do is not on a human scale, it is on a geopolitical scale.
fall writing epic
English writing tends to fall into two categories - the big, baggy epic novel or the fairly controlled, tidy novel. For a long time, I was a fan of the big, baggy novel, but there's definitely an advantage to having a little bit more control.
weed growing-up sibling
They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.
girl fall dark
Boys are just boys after all, but sometimes girls really seem to be the turn of a pale wrist, or the sudden jut of a hip, or a clutch of very dark hair falling across a freckled forehead. I'm not saying that's what they really are. I'm just saying sometimes it seems that way, and that those details (a thigh mole, a full face flush, a scar the precise shape and size of a cashew nut) are so many hooks waiting to land you.
passion accessories objects
The object of the passion is just an accessory to the passion itself.
giving catholic promise
(and Catholics give out forgiveness at about the same rate as politicians give out promises and whores give out)
baby kissing baptism
Then he gave her a kiss on the forehead that felt like a baptism and she wept like a baby.
religious writing editors
When I was 21, I wanted to write like Kafka. But, unfortunately for me, I wrote like a script editor for 'The Simpsons' who'd briefly joined a religious cult and then discovered Foucault. Such is life.
real rap ghetto
The roots of rap are originally ghetto-ised or extremely working class. So when you're an artist who's making something which isn't how its mainstream appearance should be, there's always these strange questions of authenticity and what you have to do to be 'real' as a rapper.
beautiful clever self
Novels are not about expressing yourself, they're about something beautiful, funny, clever and organic. Self-expression? Go and ring a bell in a yard if you want to express yourself.