http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/cambridgeauthors/zadie-smith
The most important studies to me, were the literary theory and the philosophy. They left me capable of independent thought, something my school education never really achieved.
Without it, I never would have written anything. The great breadth of novels I read - they made me write.
Literary connections
You describe your last novel, On Beauty, as 'a novel inspired by a love of E.M. Forster, to whom all my fiction is indebted'. What is it about Forster's writing that you find so attractive? Can you say a bit more about how he has inspired your other fiction?
I have to say I find him a lot less attractive than I used to. I've written and talked about him too much. The reasons are very personal - when I was in North London, reading about Cambridge, trying to imagine being there, Forster was the only one of that lot - Strachey, the Stephens boys, Keynes, Brooke, etc. - who seemed to me 'within reach'; he wasn't as intimidating as the rest; he was suburban; he wasn't especially bold, but his was work had a radical tinge... a sort of iron fist in velvet glove approach. And that suited me, as something to aspire to, at the time.
Forster aside, are there other obvious or subtle debts in your fiction? Can you point to specific moments or examples where this is apparent?
White Teeth has always seemed to me one enormous act of plagiarism. But I'm not going to help anyone 'spot the author'. It's a young person's book, written by a very young person heavily under the influence of her reading. Any sharp-eyed reader will find the clues here and there.
Literary heritage matters to me. Specifically the history of English literature. I loved Milton when I was 14 in Kilburn - I don't feel a radical break with that language, or with the language of Keats or Pope. There is change and there is also continuity - that seems obvious enough to me. And I don't believe the language degenerates; I think the language of, say, British hip-hop is an addition to the language of Milton, not a threat to him. And the centuries speak to each other - the radical leaflets of the 17th century Catholic insurgency are not a million miles from the fundamentalist Islamic pamphlets you can pick up on the Kilburn high road...
BIO:
Zadie Smith was born in 1975 and grew up in London. She studied English at King's College, Cambridge between 1994 and 1997, during which time she published short stories in The Mays Anthology and began working on her first novel, White Teeth. Smith has published three novels to date: White Teeth in 2000, The Autograph Man in 2002 and On Beauty in 2005, which won the Orange prize for fiction in 2006.
Unlike most of the other authors represented in the Cambridge Authors project, Smith is a contemporary writer in some ways still at the beginning of her career as a novelist and critic. She is also a writer whose works reflect her position in a modern, urban community, as well as in an intellectual and literary culture defined by the great English writers of the past (one of whom, E. M. Forster, is another of our Cambridge Authors). The essays and resources - including an interview - available here reflect these emphases.
© 2010 Cambridge Authors
Email The Project Editors
White Teeth has always seemed to me one enormous act of plagiarism. But I'm not going to help anyone 'spot the author'. It's a young person's book, written by a very young person heavily under the influence of her reading. Any sharp-eyed reader will find the clues here and there.
Literary heritage matters to me. Specifically the history of English literature. I loved Milton when I was 14 in Kilburn - I don't feel a radical break with that language, or with the language of Keats or Pope. There is change and there is also continuity - that seems obvious enough to me. And I don't believe the language degenerates; I think the language of, say, British hip-hop is an addition to the language of Milton, not a threat to him. And the centuries speak to each other - the radical leaflets of the 17th century Catholic insurgency are not a million miles from the fundamentalist Islamic pamphlets you can pick up on the Kilburn high road...
BIO:
Zadie Smith was born in 1975 and grew up in London. She studied English at King's College, Cambridge between 1994 and 1997, during which time she published short stories in The Mays Anthology and began working on her first novel, White Teeth. Smith has published three novels to date: White Teeth in 2000, The Autograph Man in 2002 and On Beauty in 2005, which won the Orange prize for fiction in 2006.
Unlike most of the other authors represented in the Cambridge Authors project, Smith is a contemporary writer in some ways still at the beginning of her career as a novelist and critic. She is also a writer whose works reflect her position in a modern, urban community, as well as in an intellectual and literary culture defined by the great English writers of the past (one of whom, E. M. Forster, is another of our Cambridge Authors). The essays and resources - including an interview - available here reflect these emphases.
© 2010 Cambridge Authors
Email The Project Editors
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