Search results for ""author zadie smith""

WINNER OF THE MOST PROMISING PLAYWRIGHT AT THE CRITICS CIRCLE THEATRE AWARDS 2022 'Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend.She plays many roles round here. And neverScared to tell the whole of her truth, whetherOr not anyone wants to hear it. WifeOf Willesden: pissed enough to tell her lifeStory to whoever has ears and eyes . . .' Zadie Smith's first time writing for the stage, The Wife of Willesden is a riotous twenty-first century translation of Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Wife of Bath's Prologue, brought to glorious life on the Kilburn High Road.Commissioned to celebrate Brent's year as Borough of Culture 2020, The Wife of Willesden ran at the Kiln Theatre, London from November 2021 to January 2022.

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From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Swing Time, White Teeth and On Beauty - a masterful and intimate novel of modern London life'A triumph. Every sentence sings' Guardian'Intensely funny, richly varied, always unexpected. A joyous, optimistic, angry masterpiece' Daily Telegraph'Smith's most satisfying novel. Funny, sexy, weird, full of acute social comedy. She's up there with the best around' Evening StandardZadie Smith's brilliant tragicomic NW follows four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan - after they've left their childhood council estate, grown up and moved on to different lives. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their city is brutal, beautiful and complicated. Yet after a chance encounter they each find that the choices they've made, the people they once were and are now, can suddenly, rapidly unravel. Funny, poignant and vividly contemporary, NW is as brimming with vitality as the city itself.

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One of Time Magazine's 100 Must-Read Books of 2020 and an FT Best Book of the YearThought-provoking and deeply consoling, a perfectly distilled set of essays on the strangest year many of us have experienced, from one of our wisest and most humane thinkers'As well as offering a new guide to living in a wild, messy and unfair world, Smith provides a reminder that we can use this crisis to imagine a better one' Evening Standard Deeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of essays on the experience of lockdown, by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our timeFrom the critically acclaimed author of Feel Free, Swing Time, White Teeth and many more'There will be many books written about the year 2020: historical, analytic, political and comprehensive accounts. This is not any of those - the year isn't half-way done. What I've tried to do is organize some of the feelings and thoughts that events, so far, have provoked in me, in those scraps of time the year itself has allowed. These are above all personal essays: small by definition, short by necessity.' Crafted with the sharp intelligence, wit and style that have won Zadie Smith millions of fans, and suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these unprecedented times, Intimations is a vital work of art, a gesture of connection and an act of love - an essential book in extraordinary times. 'Zadie Smith is a marvel - her soulfulness, her sensitivity, her ability to write . . . She doesn't try to make grand statements but just leaves you with the sense that you're in the company of someone who can help you feel things deeply' Tom Hollander in the Guardian

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An unforgettable portrait of London and one of the most talked about debuts of all time!'The almost preposterous talent was clear from the first pages' GuardianOn New Years Day 1975, the day of his almost-suicide, life said yes to Archie Jones. Not OK or 'You-might-as-well-carry-on-since-you've-started'. A resounding affirmative.Promptly seizing his second life by the horns, Archie meets and marries Clara Bowden, a Caribbean girl twenty-eight years his junior.Thus begins a tale of friendship, of love and war, of three culture and three families over three generations . . .*****'Street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time' New York Times'Outstanding' Sunday Telegraph'An astonishingly assured début, funny and serious . . . I was delighted' Salman Rushdie

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LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017'Smith's finest. Extraordinary, truly marvellous' Observer A dazzlingly exuberant novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the critically acclaimed author of White Teeth, On Beauty and Grand Union Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either.Bursting with energy, rhythm and movement, Swing Time is Zadie Smith's most ambitious novel yet. It is a story about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it . . .'Superb' Financial Times 'Breathtaking' TLS 'Pitch-perfect' Daily Telegraph'There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith' Telegraph

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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZESUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERFrom the acclaimed author of Swing Time, White Teeth and Grand Union, discover a brilliantly funny and deeply moving story about love and familyWhy do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?Set between New England and London, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kipps - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.'I didn't want to finish, I was enjoying it so much' Evening Standard'Thrums with intellectual sass and know-how' Literary Review'Filled with humour, generosity and contemporary sparkle' Daily Telegraph 'Satirical, wise and sexy' Washington Post

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An unforgettable portrait of London and one of the most talked about debuts of all time!'The almost preposterous talent was clear from the first pages' GuardianOn New Years Day 1975, the day of his almost-suicide, life said yes to Archie Jones. Not OK or 'You-might-as-well-carry-on-since-you've-started'. A resounding affirmative.Promptly seizing his second life by the horns, Archie meets and marries Clara Bowden, a Caribbean girl twenty-eight years his junior.Thus begins a tale of friendship, of love and war, of three culture and three families over three generations . . .*****'Street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time' New York Times'Outstanding' Sunday Telegraph'An astonishingly assured début, funny and serious . . . I was delighted' Salman Rushdie

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From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Swing Time, White Teeth and On Beauty'A pleasure from the first page to the last' Evening Standard'A glorious concoction by our most beguiling and original prose-wizard' Independent on Sunday 'Full of humour, the search for love and the fear of death... A touching, thoughtful, deeply felt rite-of-passage novel' Sunday Telegraph The Autograph Man follows one Alex-Li Tandem: a twenty-something Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion. From London to New York, love to death, fathers to sons, Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.

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WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR CRITICISM 2019From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Changing My Mind and Swing Time - discover a second unmissable collection of essays from Zadie Smith'Generous, courageous, and tough-minded... [A] classic English essayist in the vein of Orwell, Woolf and Angela Carter' Financial Times'Engrossing, astute... Should you read this brilliant book? Absolutely' Independent'Generous and curious' Evening Standard'Brilliant, lively and frequently hilarious... She's one of the brightest minds in English literature today' NPRNo subject is too fringe or too mainstream for the unstoppable Zadie Smith. From social media to the environment, from Jay-Z to Karl Ove Knausgaard, she has boundless curiosity and the boundless wit to match. In Feel Free, pop culture, high culture, social change and political debate all get the Zadie Smith treatment, dissected with razor-sharp intellect, set brilliantly against the context of the utterly contemporary, and considered with a deep humanity and compassion. This electrifying new collection showcases its author as a true literary powerhouse, demonstrating once again her credentials as an essential voice of her generation.

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LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017'Smith's finest. Extraordinary, truly marvellous' Observer A dazzlingly exuberant novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the critically acclaimed author of White Teeth, On Beauty and Grand Union Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either.Bursting with energy, rhythm and movement, Swing Time is Zadie Smith's most ambitious novel yet. It is a story about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it . . .'Superb' Financial Times 'Breathtaking' TLS 'Pitch-perfect' Daily Telegraph'There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith' Telegraph

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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZESUNDAY TIMES TOP TEN BESTSELLERFrom the acclaimed author of Swing Time, White Teeth and Grand Union, discover a brilliantly funny and deeply moving story about love and familyWhy do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?Set between New England and London, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kipps - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.'I didn't want to finish, I was enjoying it so much' Evening Standard'Thrums with intellectual sass and know-how' Literary Review'Filled with humour, generosity and contemporary sparkle' Daily Telegraph 'Satirical, wise and sexy' Washington Post

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Book of the Year 2023 according to New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, Economist, Observer, The Spectator, Financial Times, Vogue, The Times, The Oldie, i Paper, The Standard, Washington Post, Independent, Daily ExpressSHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The TelegraphTruth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? Zadie Smith returns with her first historical novel.Kilburn, 1873. The 'Tichborne Trial' has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter.Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.Andrew Bogle meanwhile finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what's true can prove a complicated task.‘It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction? Or such a range of living, breathing, surprising characters with such an idiosyncratically structured narrative?’ Michael Frayn‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind, which, as time goes on, is becoming contiguous with London itself. Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive’ New York Times‘Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain . . . The Fraud is the genuine article’ Independent‘Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery’ GuardianInstant Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

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Published in the first month of the first year of the new century, Zadie Smith''s debut novel White Teeth - winner of the Guardian First Book Award and the Whitbread First Novel Award - was an immediate bestseller and stunningly acclaimed.One of the most talked about fictional débuts of ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-read of a book.''Funny, clever ... and a rollicking good read'' Independent ''An astonishingly assured début, funny and serious ... I was delighted'' Salman Rushdie''The almost preposterous talent was clear from the first pages'' Julian Barnes, Guardian''Quirky, sassy and wise ... a big, s

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WINNER OF THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTIONSHORTLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZEFrom the acclaimed author of Swing Time, White Teeth and Grand Union, discover a brilliantly funny and deeply moving story about love and familyWhy do we fall in love with the people we do? Why do we visit our mistakes on our children? What makes life truly beautiful?Set between New England and London, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kipps - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.'Ambitious, hugely impressive, beautifully observed' Guardian

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A far-ranging, invigorating and irrepressible collection of essays on literature, cinema, art - and everything in between - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Feel Free and Swing Time'Alarmingly good' Metro'Striding with open hearted zest and eloquence between fiction (from EM Forster to David Foster Wallace) and travel, movies and comedy, family and community in a self-portrait that charts the evolution of a formidable talent' Independent'Supremely good. Smith writes with such infectious zeal and engaging accessibility that it makes you want to turn up at her house and demand tutoring' Dazed'Brilliant' Vogue

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From the MAN BOOKER PRIZE- and WOMEN'S PRIZE-SHORTLISTED author of Swing Time, White Teeth and On Beauty - a masterful and intimate novel of modern London life'A triumph. Every sentence sings' Guardian'Intensely funny, richly varied, always unexpected. A joyous, optimistic, angry masterpiece' Daily Telegraph'Smith's most satisfying novel. Funny, sexy, weird, full of acute social comedy. She's up there with the best around' Evening StandardZadie Smith's brilliant tragicomic NW follows four Londoners - Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan - after they've left their childhood council estate, grown up and moved on to different lives. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their city is brutal, beautiful and complicated. Yet after a chance encounter they each find that the choices they've made, the people they once were and are now, can suddenly, rapidly unravel. Funny, poignant and vividly contemporary, NW is as brimming with vitality as the city itself.

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A treasure trove of outstanding stories from 'the best writer of our generation' (Gary Shteyngart) - the perfect gift for the Zadie Smith fan in your life'She's already one of our best novelists and essayists, this reminds us that her short stories are right up there too' Observer'Sexy and hilarious. There is no moment in Grand Union when we are not entertained, or doubt that we are in the company of one of our best contemporary writers' Guardian'Brilliant. Another slam dunk. Street life, patois, music, food, clothes, hair: Smith has her finger on the pulse of life and the utter weirdness of whatever has just become normal. This is a book of and for the times, sobering in its clarity but bracingly witty and clever' Evening Standard'Smith's dialogue crackles with mordant wit. This dazzling collection of stories will leave you with plenty to think about' IndependentInterleaving ten completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from the New Yorker and elsewhere, Zadie Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

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The definitive cult, post-modern novel – a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism – reissued with a new introduction from Zadie Smith. When Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of auto-erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash – a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant and iconic celebrity. First published in 1973 ‘Crash’ remains one of the most shocking novels of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg. This edition is part of a new commemorative series of Ballard’s works, featuring introductions from a number of his admirers (including Robert Macfarlane, Martin Amis, James Lever and Ali Smith) and brand-new cover designs from the artist Stanley Donwood.

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ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 'This novel is a packet of surprises as we have no idea what's going to happen next' GUARDIAN 'One of the greatest writers of our time' TONI MORRISON 'Devilishly funny and academically solid: delicious mixture' MAYA ANGELOU'There is no novel I love more' ZADIE SMITHWhen, at sixteen, Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams - who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds.With a cover design by Harlem renaissance artist, Lois Mailou Jones

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ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 'This novel is a packet of surprises as we have no idea what's going to happen next' GUARDIAN 'One of the greatest writers of our time' TONI MORRISON 'Devilishly funny and academically solid: delicious mixture' MAYA ANGELOU'There is no novel I love more' ZADIE SMITHWhen, at sixteen, Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams - who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds.

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'Toni Morrison was the lodestar who inspired us' Bernadine EvaristoTwyla and Roberta have known each other since they were eight years old, when they were thrown together as roommates in a girls' shelter. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only to meet again later at a diner, a grocery store and then at a protest. The two women are seemingly at opposite ends of every problem but, despite their conflict, the deep bond their shared experience has forged between them is undeniable. Recitatif keeps Twyla's and Roberta's races ambiguous throughout the story. We know that one is white and one is black, but which is which? And who is right about the race of the woman the girls tormented at the orphanage? This story is a masterful exploration of what keeps us together and what keeps us apart, of race and the relationships that shape our lives. Now with a new introduction by Zadie Smith, it is as radically compelling and relevant today as it was when first written nearly forty years ago.'Toni Morrison is the greatest chronicler of the American experience that we have ever known' Tayari Jones'Her work is an act of giving her community back to itself, so that people - African-Americans but the diaspora as well - can see and witness themselves' Diana Evans

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ONE OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL NOVELS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'This novel is a packet of surprises as we have no idea what's going to happen next' GUARDIAN'One of the greatest writers of our time' TONI MORRISON'Devilishly funny and academically solid: delicious mixture' MAYA ANGELOU'There is no novel I love more' ZADIE SMITHShe was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the inaudible voice of it all came to her . . .When, at sixteen, Janie is caught kissing shiftless Johnny Taylor, her grandmother swiftly marries her off to an old man with sixty acres. Janie endures two stifling marriages before meeting the man of her dreams - who offers not diamonds, but a packet of flowering seeds.Books included in the VMC 40th anniversary series include: Frost in May by Antonia White; The Collected Stories of Grace Paley; Fire from Heaven by Mary Renault; The Magic Toyshop by Angela Carter; The Weather in the Streets by Rosamond Lehmann; Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith; The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston; Heartburn by Nora Ephron; The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy; Memento Mori by Muriel Spark; A View of the Harbour by Elizabeth Taylor; and Faces in the Water by Janet Frame

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Winner of the 2020 Hugo Boss PrizeOne of the most intriguing photographers of her generation, Deana Lawson’s subject is black expressive culture and her canvas is the African Diaspora. Over the last ten years, she has created a striking visual language to describe black identities, through figurative portraiture and social documentary accounts of ceremonies and rituals. Lawson works with large-format cameras and models she meets in the United States and on travels in the Caribbean and Africa to construct arresting, highly structured, and deliberately theatrical scenes animated by an exquisite range of color and attention to surprising details: bedding and furniture in domestic interiors or lush plants in Edenic gardens. The body—often nude—is central. Throughout her work, Lawson seeks to portray the personal and the powerful in black life. Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph features forty-five beautifully reproduced photographs and an extensive interview with the filmmaker Arthur Jafa. “Outside a Deana Lawson portrait you might be working three jobs, just keeping your head above water, struggling. But inside her frame you are beautiful, imperious, unbroken, unfallen.” — Zadie Smith

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Meet Maud: a guinea pig who inexplicably wears a judo suit - and not everyone understands or approves. When Maud is thrown into a new and confusing situation, it takes brave decisions and serendipitous encounters for her to find her place and embrace her individuality.The charming characters of Magenta Fox, whose work is evocative of Raymond Briggs and Janet Ahlberg, perfectly offset Zadie and Nick's warm, wry prose.Weirdo is an endearing story about the quiet power of being different by two veteran writers, and introduces an exciting debut illustrator. Together they have created a picture book that adults and children alike will treasure.

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