In the last two decades, what this novel describes as the 'great
ocean-crossing experiment' has added a whopping dose of fertiliser
to British literature, enabling it to flower as never before. And
now, with Smith's impressive debut, there are signs of fresh
growth. Smith's disillusioned men, frustrated women and torn
teenagers are 'midnight's grandchildren', for whom cultural
meltdown, segregation and reinvention are recurring themes. Her
narrative charts the tragi-comic progress of Samad Iqbal and Archie
Jones from World War II to 1990s London. It's here, amid the caffs
and tikka restaurants of Willesden that both men settle and found
families - Archie with the Afro-Carribean Clara, and Samad with
Alsana, from his native Bengal. And it is here that their assorted
offspring do battle with the expectations and hypocrisies of their
elders and the seductive lure of fundamentalism. Smith's habit of
switching protagonists almost in mid-stream gives the book a
directionless feel, but what the novel lacks in narrative drive it
makes up for in humour, verve and stylistic playfulness. And while
Smith's intelligent, feisty prose style bears more than a passing
resemblance to Salman Rushdie's, the territory she lays claim to is
her own. A writer to watch. (Kirkus UK)
‘Zadie Smith's fizzing first novel is ... an astonishingly assured debut, funny and serious, and the voice has real writerly idiosyncrasy. I was delighted by White Teeth, and often impressed.’
Salman Rushdie
One of the most talked about fictional débuts of recent years, 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.
White Teeth has won awards for Best Book and Best Female Newcomer at the BT Emma Awards (Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards), the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread Prize for a first novel in 2000, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction 2000, the WH Smith Book Award for New Talent, the Frankfurt ebook Award for Best Fiction Work and both the Commonwealth Writers First Book Award and Overall Commonwealth Writers Prize.
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