Zadie Smith FRSL is an English novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. Her debut novel, White Teeth (2000), immediately became a best-seller and won a number of awards. She became a tenured professor in the Creative Writing faculty of New York University in September 2010.
Netherland (2008) is a novel by Joseph O'Neill. It concerns the life of a Dutchman living in New York in the wake of the September 11 attacks who takes up cricket and starts playing at the Staten Island Cricket Club.
The Known World is a 2003 historical novel by Edward P. Jones. Set in Virginia during the antebellum era, it examines the issues regarding the ownership of Black slaves by both White and Black Americans.
Arthur Orton was an English man who has generally been identified by legal historians and commentators as the "Tichborne Claimant", who in two celebrated court cases both fascinated and shocked Victorian society in the 1860s and 1870s.
On Beauty is a 2005 novel by British author Zadie Smith, loosely based on Howards End by E. M. Forster. The story follows the lives of a mixed-race British/American family living in the United States, addresses ethnic and cultural differences in both the USA and the UK, as well as the nature of beauty, and the clash between liberal and conservative academic values. It takes its title from an essay by Elaine Scarry—"On Beauty and Being Just". The Observer described the novel as a "transatlantic comic saga".
The Autograph Man, published in 2002, is the second novel by Zadie Smith. It follows the progress of a Jewish-Chinese Londoner named Alex-Li Tandem, who buys and sells autographs for a living and is obsessed with celebrities. Eventually, his obsession culminates in a meeting with the elusive American-Russian actress Kitty Alexander, a star from Hollywood's Golden Age. In 2003, the novel won the Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Literary Prize. The novel was a commercial success, but was not as well received by readers and critics as her previous and first novel, White Teeth (2000). Smith has stated that before she started work on The Autograph Man she had writer's block.
The Mirror & the Light is a 2020 historical novel by English writer Hilary Mantel and the final novel published in her lifetime, appearing two and a half years before her death. Following Wolf Hall (2009) and Bring Up the Bodies (2012), it is the final instalment in her trilogy charting the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, minister in the court of King Henry VIII. It covers the last four years of his life, from 1536 until his death by execution in 1540.
NW is a 2012 novel by British author Zadie Smith. It takes its title from the NW postcode area in North-West London, where the novel is set. The novel is experimental and follows four different characters living in London, shifting between first and third person, stream-of-consciousness, screenplay-style dialogue, and other narrative techniques in an attempt to reflect the polyphonic nature of contemporary urban life. It was nominated for the 2013 Women's Prize for Fiction.
Remainder is a 2005 novel by British author Tom McCarthy. It is McCarthy's third published work. It was first written in 2001, although not published until 2005. The novel was later re-printed by UK publishing house Alma Books; Vintage Books printed the book in the United States. The plot revolves around an unnamed narrator who has received a large financial settlement after an accident, and his obsession with recreating half-remembered events from his life before the incident.
Fates and Furies (2015) is the third novel by the American author Lauren Groff.
Swing Time is a novel by British writer Zadie Smith, released in November 2016. The story takes place in London, New York and West Africa, and focuses on two girls who can tap dance, alluding to Smith's childhood love of tap dancing.
Salvage the Bones is the second novel by American author Jesmyn Ward and published by Bloomsbury in 2011. The novel explores the plight of a working-class African-American family in Mississippi as they prepare for Hurricane Katrina and follows them through the aftermath of the storm.
Lincoln in the Bardo is a 2017 experimental novel by American writer George Saunders. It is Saunders's first full-length novel and was The New York Times hardcover fiction bestseller for the week of March 5, 2017.
Nutshell is the 14th novel by English author and screenwriter Ian McEwan published in 2016. It alludes to William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and re-imagines the plot from the perspective of an eight-month-old unborn foetus in London in 2015.
Open City is a 2011 novel by Nigerian-American writer Teju Cole. The novel is primarily set in New York City, and concerns a Nigerian immigrant, Julius, who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. The novel received praise for its prose and depiction of New York.
Feel Free: Essays is a 2018 book of essays by Zadie Smith. It was published on 8 February 2018 by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books. It has been described as "thoroughly resplendent" by Maria Popova, who writes: "Smith applies her formidable mind in language to subjects as varied as music, the connection between dancing and writing, climate change, Brexit, the nature of joy, and the confusions of personhood in the age of social media."
Machines Like Me is the 15th novel by the English author Ian McEwan. The novel was published in 2019 by Jonathan Cape.
Grand Union: Stories is a 2019 short story collection by Zadie Smith. It was published on 3 October 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books.
Intimations is a 2020 collection of essays by writer Zadie Smith. Smith began writing the book around the time the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States, and completed it soon after the murder of George Floyd.
Spring is a 2019 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, first published by Hamish Hamilton. It was long-listed for the Orwell Prize (2020).
