Zadie Smith

**Zadie Smith** FRSL (born 25 October 1975) is a contemporary English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her first novel was called _White Teeth_. It immediately became a best-seller and won awards. Her most recent book is _Feel Free_ (2018). It is a collection of essays. She has been a tenured professor in the Creative Writing faculty of New York University since September 2010.

## Early life

Smith was born **Sadie Smith** in Willesden in the north-west London borough of Brent. Her mother was Yvonne Bailey and her father was Harvey Smith. Bailey is Jamaican and Smith is English At the age of 14, she changed her name to Zadie.

Smith's mother grew up in Jamaica, and emigrated to England in 1969. Smith's parents divorced when she was a teenager. She has a half-sister, a half-brother, and two younger brothers (one is the rapper and stand-up comedian Doc Brown, and the other is the rapper Luc Skyz). As a child, Smith liked tap dancing. As a teenager, she considered a career in musical theatre. When she was a university student, Smith earned money as a jazz singer. She also wanted to become a journalist. Despite earlier ambitions, literature became her main interest.

## Education

Smith attended the local state schools, Malorees Junior School and Hampstead Comprehensive School. She then studied English literature atKing's College, Cambridge. She did not leave Cambridge with a double First. She got a Third on her Part Ones.

The popular British comedy double act Mitchell and Webb may have rejected Smith from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1990s.

At Cambridge, Smith published a number of short stories in a collection of new student writing called _The Mays Anthology_. A publisher liked the stories and offered her a contract for her first novel. Smith contacted a literary agent, and A. P. Watt represented her. Smith returned to guest-edit the anthology in 2001.

## Career

Smith's first novel _White Teeth_ was introduced to the publishing world in 1997, before it was completed. Publishers saw part of the manuscript and an auction for the rights started. Hamish Hamilton won. Smith completed _White Teeth_ during her final year at Cambridge. It was published in 2000. The novel immediately became a best-seller. It was praised internationally and won awards, including: the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Betty Trask Award. The novel was adapted for television in 2002. Smith was writer-in-residence at the ICA in London and later published, as editor, an anthology of sex writing, _Piece of Flesh_, as the main work of this job.

In interviews, Smith reported that all the attention around her first novel had caused her to suffer briefly from writer's block. But, her second novel, _The Autograph Man_, was published in 2002 and was a commercial success. Critics did not like it as much as _White Teeth_.

After the publication of _The Autograph Man_, Smith visited the United States as a Fellow of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University.

Smith's third novel, _On Beauty_, was published in September 2005. The story happens mostly in and around Greater Boston. It received better reviews than _The Autograph Man_: it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award.

Also in 2005, Smith published _Martha and Hanwell_. This book combines two short stories about two troubled characters. The stories had been published first in _Granta_ and _The New Yorker_. Penguin published _Martha and Hanwell_ with a new introduction by the author as part of their pocket series to celebrate their 70th birthday. The first story, "Martha, Martha", is about Smith's familiar themes of race and postcolonial identity. "Hanwell in Hell" is about a man in trouble trying to understand the death of his wife. In December 2008 she guest-edited the BBC Radio 4 _Today_ programme.

After teaching fiction at Columbia University School of the Arts, Smith joined New York University as a tenured professor of fiction in 2010.

Smith's novel _NW_ was published in 2012. The story happens in the Kilburn area of north-west London. So, the title comes from the local postcode, NW6. _NW_ was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction. _NW_ was made into a BBC television film directed by Saul Dibb and adapted by Rachel Bennette. Starring Nikki Amuka-Bird and Phoebe Fox, it was broadcast on BBC Two on 14 November 2016.

Smith's fifth novel, _Swing Time_, was published in November 2016. It was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize 2017.

Between March and October 2011, Smith was the monthly New Books reviewer for _Harper's Magazine_. She often writes for _The New York Review of Books_. In 2010, _The Guardian_ newspaper asked Smith for her "10 rules for writing fiction".

## Personal life

Smith met Nick Laird at Cambridge University. They married in 2004 in the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge. Smith dedicated _On Beauty_ to "my dear Laird". She also uses his name in _White Teeth_: "An' all the good-lookin' men, all the _rides_ like your man Nicky Laird, they're all dead."

The couple lived in Rome, Italy, from November 2006 to 2007. They now live in New York City and Queen's Park, London. They have two children, Katherine (Kit) and Harvey (Hal).

### Novels

- _White Teeth_ (2000)
- _The Autograph Man_ (2002)
- _On Beauty_ (2005)
- _NW_ (2012)
- _Swing Time_ (2016)
- _The Fraud_ (2019)

### Short fiction

- Collections
- "Martha and Hanwell" (2005)
- "Grand Union" (2019)
- Stories
|width=25%|Title||Year||First published||Reprinted/collected||Notes|
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
|"Now More Than Ever"|2018|23 July 2018|_The New Yorker_|"Now More Than Ever"||||||
|"The Lazy River "|2017|2017|_The New Yorker_|||||||
|"Two Men Arrive in a Village"|2016|6 & 13 June 2016|_The New Yorker_|"Two Men Arrive in a Village"||||||
|"Escape From New York"|2015|||||||||
|"Big Week"|2014|_The Paris Review_||||||||
|"Moonlit Landscape with Bridge"|2014|||||||||
|"The Embassy of Cambodia"|2013|||||||||
|"Meet the President!"|2013|||||||||
|"Permission to Enter"|2012|||||||||
|"Hanwell Senior"|2007|||||||||
|"The Girl with Bangs"|2001|||||||||
|"The Waiter's Wife"|1999|||||||||

### Non-fiction

- _Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays_ (2009)
- _Stop What You're Doing and Read This!_ (2011) (with Carmen Callil, Mark Haddon, Michael Rosen and Jeanette Winterson)
- "Some Notes on Attunement: A voyage around Joni Mitchell", _The New Yorker_, 17 December 2012, and later featured in _The Best American Essays_ (2013)
- "On optimism and despair", _The New York Review of Books_  (22 December 2016); speech given on accepting the Welt-Literaturpreis
- _Fences: A Brexit Diary_ (2016)
- _Feel Free_ (2018)

### As editor

- _Piece of Flesh_ (2001)
- _The Burned Children of America_ (2003) (with Dave Eggers)
- _The Book of Other People_ (2007)

### Critical studies and reviews of Smith's work

- Review of _NW_.
- Tew, Philip (ed.). _Reading Zadie Smith: The First Decade and Beyond_. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
- Tew, Philip. _Zadie Smith_. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
- Walters, Tracey (ed.). _Zadie Smith: Critical Essays._ New York: Peter Lang Publications, 2008.

## Awards and recognition

She was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002. In a 2004 In a BBC poll, cultural researchers named Smith in the top twenty most influential people in British culture.

In 2003, she was included on _Granta's_ list of 20 best young authors, and was also included in the 2013 list. She joined New York University's Creative Writing Program as a tenured professor on 1 September 2010. Smith has won the Orange Prize for Fiction. and the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 2006 Her novel _White Teeth_ was included in _Time_ magazine's list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.
- _White Teeth_: won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and the Commonwealth Writers’ First Book Award. Included on _Time_ magazine's 100 best English-language novels published from 1923 to 2005
- _The Autograph Man_: won the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize
- _On Beauty_: won the Commonwealth Writers’ Best Book Award (Eurasia Section), and the Orange Prize for Fiction; shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
- _NW_: shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction
- _Swing Time_: longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017
- _Granta_′s Best of Young British Novelists, 2003 and 2013
- 2016 _Welt_-Literaturpreis
- 2017 Langston Hughes Medal awarded on 16 November at the Langston Hughes Festival at The City College of New York.
- 2019 Infinity Award, Critical Writing and Research, International Center of Photography

## Other websites

- Curry, Ginette. _Toubab La!: Literary Representations of Mixed-race Characters in the African Diaspora_. Newcastle, England: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007, .

- "Girl Wonder"  on Salon.com (2000).
- Joy Press, "Only Connect" , an interview with Zadie Smith in the _Village Voice_, 13 September 2005.
- Stephanie Merritt, "She's young, black, British – and the first publishing sensation of the millennium", _The Observer_, 16 January 2000.
- Wyatt Mason, "White Knees", an essay on Smith's body of work, _Harper's Magazine_, October 2005.
- Smith article archive from _The New York Review of Books_
- "Mind the Gap" in _Guernica Magazine_, January 2012.
- Broadcaster Philippa Thomas on the London of Zadie Smith's _NW_, London Fictions, 2012.
- Alison Flood, "Zadie Smith criticises author who says more than one child limits career", _The Guardian_, 13 June 2013
- Zadie Smith on _Desert Island Discs_, BBC Radio 4, 22 September 2013.
- Brian Tanguay, "A Conversation with Zadie Smith", _Santa Barbara Independent_, 21 November 2017.

## Infobox (writer)

- **name**: Zadie Smith
- **image**: Zadie Smith NBCC 2011 Shankbone.jpg
- **caption**: Smith announcing the 2010 National Book Critics Circle award finalists in fiction
- **birth name**: Sadie Smith
- **birth place**: London Borough of Brent, Brent, London, England
- **language**: English
- **alma mater**: King's College, Cambridge
- **period**: 2000–present
- **children**: 2