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Zadie SmithZadie Smith
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Critical perspective
BiographyNovelist Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975 to an English father and a Jamaican mother. She read English at Cambridge, graduating in 1997.
Her third novel, On Beauty, was published in 2005, and won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction. She has also written a non-fiction book about writing - Fail Better (2006).
Zadie Smith is currently a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University.
Genres (in alphabetical order)Fiction, Short stories
BibliographySpeaking with the Angel (contributor) Penguin, 2000 White Teeth Hamish Hamilton, 2000 Piece of Flesh (editor) Institute of Contemporary Arts, 2001 The May Anthologies (editor) Varsity Publications, 2001 The Autograph Man Hamish Hamilton, 2002 Best of Young British Novelists 2003 (includes short story 'Martha, Martha' by Zadie Smith) Granta, 2003 The Burned Children of America (introduction) Hamish Hamilton, 2003 On Beauty Hamish Hamilton, 2005 Fail Better: The Morality of the Novel Hamish Hamilton, 2006 The Book of Other People (editor) Hamish Hamilton, 2007
Prizes and awards2000 EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Best Book/Novel White Teeth 2000 EMMA (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award) for Best Female Media Newcomer White Teeth 2000 Guardian First Book Award White Teeth 2000 James Tait Black Memorial Prize (for fiction) White Teeth 2000 Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize (shortlist) White Teeth 2000 Whitbread First Novel Award White Teeth 2001 Authors' Club First Novel Award (shortlist) White Teeth 2001 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book) White Teeth 2001 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) White Teeth 2001 WH Smith Award for Best New Talent White Teeth 2003 Jewish Quarterly Literary Prize for Fiction The Autograph Man 2003 Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist) The Autograph Man 2003 Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award (shortlist) The Autograph Man 2005 Man Booker Prize for Fiction (shortlist) On Beauty 2006 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize (shortlist) On Beauty 2006 British Book Awards Decibel Writer of the Year (shortlist) On Beauty 2006 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia Region, Best Book) (shortlist) On Beauty 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction On Beauty 2006 Somerset Maugham Award On Beauty
Critical PerspectiveZadie Smith made an astonishing literary debut with White Teeth (2000). This first novel initially became notable for the publicity it received in 1997 when Smith accepted a six-figure advance for both this work, which was yet to be completed, and a future second novel. This advance is also remarkable because it was offered when she was only 21 years old and still studying English Literature at Cambridge. The publicity that arose from this commercial faith in her writing undoubtedly ensured the attention of literary critics once it was completed. However, the mainly positive reviews, several awards (including the Whitbread First Novel Award) and high sales of over a million copies, have demonstrated that the hype could be believed: there has been a general consensus that White Teeth is impressive in its fluidity and scope. Smith has since negated the value of White Teeth and considers it a naïve product of her adolescence (The Guardian, 25 August 2002); however, its success has meant that her novels have continued to be of great interest in international literary circles.
As though to legitimise Smith’s burgeoning reputation, reviewers have compared her favourably (based on her first two novels) with established contemporary writers such as Salman Rushdie, and occasionally with Martin Amis. The comparison with Rushdie is somewhat tenuous, and appears to be based on their loose common interest in deconstructing Western mythologies of racial stereotypes. A similarity with Amis’s style may be seen more clearly, though, especially when comparing her second novel, The Autograph Man (2002), with Amis’s Money (1984) and the more recent Yellow Dog (2003).
White Teeth is broad in its reach with its use of themes such as history, the search for identity, the ethics of science and multiculturalism. Furthermore, the examination of the interaction between the members of three London-based central families (the Joneses, the Iqbals and the Chalfens) makes this a sprawling work. With these numerous protagonists, Smith demonstrates an effective use of humour and critical insight. On a more abstract level, the intermittent references to the end of the world and the impending millennium mean that the heightened moment of uncertainty about the future and the past becomes yet another focus.
If there is a drawback to White Teeth, it lies in the same expansiveness that has attracted praise. The Autograph Man is more concentrated, as it depends mainly on the anxieties and desires of the eponymous hero (Alex-Li Tandem, the autograph man). There are less central characters that dominate the stage, but this novel resembles its predecessor in its engagement with contemporary cultural concerns. An understanding of obsession and celebrity, and the desire for truth (in the guise of an authentic autograph), underpin the plot, as Alex searches for and finds Kitty Alexander, the ageing B-movie actress.
Besides the invocation of the obviously contemporary subject of fame and its drawbacks, The Autograph Man also examines the continuing bereavement Alex endures for his dead father. Because of this aspect, there is a poignancy not in evidence in White Teeth. This second novel is less dependent on humour, although it is still comedic in places, and prefers, instead, to use a postmodern irony against itself. That is, irony is used throughout the novel to expose at the end that there is still a need for friendship and remembrance in a world dominated by superficiality.
The main textual influence that helped to shape the third novel, On Beauty (2005), is clearly marked out by Smith in her acknowledgements, where she declares that this work repays E.M. Forster with ‘hommage’. The overt (and playful) influence of Howards End may be seen, for example, in the borrowed and re-worked first line. Howards End begins with the following: ‘One may as well begin with Helen’s letters to her sister’, whereas On Beauty uses a modern equivalent: ‘One may as well begin with Jerome’s emails to his father’. The developing relationship between Mrs Carlene Kipps and Kiki (Mrs Belsey) is also a purposely derivative strand, as Mrs Kipps bequeaths a painting to Kiki by way of a scrap of paper.
This is also a campus novel and is a partial testament to Smith’s university background, in particular her time spent at Cambridge and Harvard Universities, and her interest in the implications of not belonging. As with her previous two novels, the politics of race and gender are underlying concerns and humour is also in place, once more, to explode the pretensions of those who fail to examine their own perspectives. In this instance, Howard Belsey, the English white liberal who demands censorship, and Monty Kipps, the conservative English Afro-Caribbean who questions the effectiveness of positive discrimination, are the main objects of Smith’s satire. The rivalry between these two ideologically-opposed characters gives shape to the main plot.
The relationship between this novel and Howards End may be seen ultimately in the proclamation in both to ‘only connect’. On Beauty firmly reiterates, beneath the surface satire, how connections in human relationships are essential for a happy life and, as Frank Rich argues in his review of On Beauty for The New York Times, Smith ‘never loses her own serious moral compass or forsakes her pursuit of the transcendent’ (18 September, 2005). This quotation is also relevant for her previous two novels, as each one reiterates a transcendent faith in ethical living.
As well as writing novels, Smith has also edited Piece of Flesh (2001), a short story collection, and has written the introductions for The Burned Children of America (2003) and The Best American Non-Required Reading 2003 (2003). A book-length move into non-fiction has been marked by Fail Better: The Morality of the Novel (2006). This is a collection of her essays that engage with 20th-century writers and embrace the Aristotle view of fiction as a ‘hypothetical area’ to act (The Atlantic Online, 16 September 2005). The title is derivative of Samuel Beckett’s Worstward Ho (1983), and is in keeping with Smith’s view of affirmation: ‘Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.’
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