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How to pronounce Zadie Smith: zay-dee
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.
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This is a novel based, both in plot and theme, on E. M. Forster's
Howards
End. How did you come to the idea of writing such a book? What is it that
appeals to you about Forster's work?
Forster represents one of the earliest loves of my reading life and the first
intimations I ever had of the power and beauty of this funny, artificial little
construction, the novel. I wanted to pay tribute to the influence he had on me
as a teenager, and as it was a book about Beauty, I wanted the novel also to be
a record of beautiful things I've loved—novels, pieces of music, certain human
faces, paintings, and so on. But I actually think the points where On Beauty
meets Howards End are the least interesting bits of the book for me. It was
simply a way of writing inside a certain genre: the literary update. I was
thinking of things like Graham Swift's As I lay Dying/Last Orders combo; Joyce
using the structure of the Ulysses story; Helen Fielding using Pride and
Prejudice—to mention three very disparate examples.
It was a kind of scaffolding for me, but in the end the books only meet
properly at two or three points. I suppose I still think of myself as an
apprentice, and this was the end of ...
Leila Aboulela won the first Caine Prize for African Writing and is the author of many novels. Minaret was longlisted for the 2006 Orange Prize. The Translator was one of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of the Year. ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
White Teeth
Try:
Minaret
by Leila Aboulela
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into more than fifty-five languages. She is the author of the novels Purple Hibiscus, which won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize; Half of a Yellow Sun, ... (more)
If you enjoyed:
On Beauty
Try:
Americanah
by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
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