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Features

Nine timeless quotes from Zadie Smith’s White Teeth

day in life

Interviews

A day in the life of a book editor with Simon Prosser

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Reading lists

Books to help cope with the heat

With the dawn of a new millennium about to break, the Nineties was a strange, floating decade of positivity, hope and something called the World Wide Web. 

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Books that defined the 2000s

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From sweaty to sultry: why fiction loves a heatwave

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20 books everyone should read in their forties

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Could ‘green noise’ be your secret weapon to reading – and writing – more?

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Children's reading lists

Best children’s books that celebrate difference

A collage of black and white photographs of Zadie Smith and Nick Laird and the cover of their new book, Weirdo.

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9 things we learned from Zadie Smith and Nick Laird’s Penguin Podcast episode

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In defence of the exclamation mark!

Reading Remedy: what to read to transport you to a good night out

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Reading Remedy: dealing with the end of a friendship

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Where to start reading Zadie Smith’s books

Reading Remedy: what to read if you're losing track of time

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Reading Remedy: what to read if you’re losing track of time

Zadie Smith: Adult friendships seem hopelessly diluted

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Zadie Smith: ‘Adult friendships seem hopelessly diluted’

Weirdo Goes Wild

Zadie Smith (Author) 
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. The Fraud is her first historical novel. 
 
Nick Laird (Author) 
Nick Laird was born in Northern Ireland in 1975 and was educated at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. He has published two novels, Utterly Monkey and Glover's Mistake, and three collections of poetry, To a Fault, On Purpose and Go Giants. He has also edited Zoo of the New: Poems to read Now, an anthology of poetry, new and old, alongside Don Paterson. 
Laird is the recipient of many awards for his fiction and poetry, including the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York. 
Twitter: @NickLaird 
Website: nicklaird.com 
 
Magenta Fox (Illustrator) 
Magenta Fox was born in south-west London in 1994. She studied English at the University of Exeter and since moving back to London in 2015, has been working as a children's book designer. These days she works freelance - illustrating, writing and designing children's books from her flat in south London.

One of the Observer's Best Children’s Books of 2024 
 
A warm and endearing story about the quiet power of being yourself from Zadie Smith, Nick Laird and Magenta Fox. 
 
Maud - a judo-suit wearing guinea pig and proud weirdo - is off into the wild, as is Kit, her owner. Both are slightly nervous about what they'll find in the great outdoors, but with a pinch of bravery - and a few Signature Moves - they'll make new friends and explore new worlds. 
 
Praise for Weirdo: 
"A sweet, tightly written tale about the benefits of not fitting in, cheered on by Magenta Fox's gorgeous illustrations" The Times’ Best Children’s Books for Summer 2021 
"As cockle-warming as a cuddle from a favourite pet, Weirdo ought to be a smash hit" Observer 
"it's delightful" the i

White Teeth

25th Anniversary Edition

A stunning new edition of one of the most iconic fictional debuts of all time, to mark the 25th anniversary of this modern classic - perfect for any Zadie Smith fan! 
 
‘What’s past is prologue…’ 
 
First published in the year 2000, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth was one of the most celebrated novels of the new millennium. Adored by critics and readers alike, it remains a perennial bestseller, which still delights with the audacity of its scope and vision, its fresh-minted style, and the wit and warmth of its voice. 
 
Funny, generous and big-hearted, it deals – 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. 
 
A life affirming, riotous must-read of a book, it won the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award. 
 
‘Curl up with it, savour every sentence, then turn around and reread’ The Times 
 
‘The outstanding debut of the new millennium’ Observer

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. The Fraud is her first historical novel.

First published in the year 2000, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth was one of the most celebrated novels of the new millennium. Adored by critics and readers alike, it remains a perennial bestseller, which still delights with the audacity of its scope and vision, its fresh-minted style, and the wit and warmth of its voice. 
 
Funny, generous and big-hearted, it deals – 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. 
 
A life affirming, riotous must-read of a book, it won the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award.

The Fraud

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 Express 
 
SHORTLISTED FOR WATERSTONES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023 
SHORTLISTED FOR THE WRITERS’ PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024 
ONE OF SARAH JESSICA PARKER’S BEST BOOKS OF 2023 
LONGLISTED FOR THE WALTER SCOTT PRIZE FOR HISTORICAL FICTION 2024 
 
‘A writer at the peak of her powers’ The Telegraph 
 
Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? 
 
In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet – cousin, housekeeper and perhaps more – to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. 
 
From literary London to the Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic. 
 
‘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?' Michael Frayn 
 
‘As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind . . . 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’ Guardian 
 
Instant Sunday Times bestseller, September 2023

No one understands humans better. As this novel shows, there is no better guide to people and their bottomlessness than Smith herself

This was really delightful. 10/10. Zadie Smith is a genius

Brandon Taylor author of The Late Americans

A novel full of people, ideas, humour, feeling and something like moral truth – the stuff of life

Searingly original [and] virtuosic . . . the book masterfully depicts post-emancipation Britain as it ruptures along faultlines of class and race

The Fraud is unlike anything you’ll read this year: a charismatic, cerebral novel that asks us to consider the greatest fraud of all, that of one man claiming to hold the key to another’s freedom

Affecting and devastating . . . In typical Zadie style, the narrative structure and decade leaping require you to pay attention – but you’re heavily rewarded with the sheer breadth of the novel and its vividly painted characters

A wonderful meditation on truth and falsehood, and the boundaries between fact and fiction

A rich and sprawling novel with a terrific cast of characters, this is Smith at her best

The i Paper, 'Best new paperbacks for summer'

A big, rich saga, tumbling with characters and big issues (feminism, slavery, truth)

The Fraud is a complex mosaic of interweaving plots . . . The novel pulls off the trick of being both splendidly modern and authentically old and the characters are varied and entertaining

Ambitious in both style and subject matter, and bursting with Smith’s trademark sprightly dialogue, The Fraud is also very funny

Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story? 
 
In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet – cousin, housekeeper and perhaps more – to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth. 
 
From literary London to the Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic.

The Wife of Willesden

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 never 
Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether 
Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife 
Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life 
Story 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.

'Married five times. Mother. Lover. Aunt. Friend. 
She plays many roles round here. And never 
Scared to tell the whole of her truth, whether 
Or not anyone wants to hear it. Wife 
Of Willesden: pissed enough to tell her life 
Story to whoever has ears and eyes...' 
 
Zadie Smith's first play is a joyous re-imagining of Chaucer's classic, The Wife of Bath's Tale. As the crowd in a small pub on the Kilburn High Road stand up to share their stories, the Wife of Willesden is not afraid to bare it all...

Weirdo

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.

Zadie Smith (Author) 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. The Fraud is her first historical novel. Nick Laird (Author) Nick Laird was born in Northern Ireland in 1975 and was educated at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University. He has published two novels, Utterly Monkey and Glover's Mistake, and three collections of poetry, To a Fault, On Purpose and Go Giants. He has also edited Zoo of the New: Poems to read Now, an anthology of poetry, new and old, alongside Don Paterson. 
Laird is the recipient of many awards for his fiction and poetry, including the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, and the Somerset Maugham Award. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches Creative Writing at Columbia University in New York. 
Twitter: @NickLaird 
 Website: nicklaird.com Magenta Fox (Illustrator) Magenta Fox was born in south-west London in 1994. She studied English at the University of Exeter and since moving back to London in 2015, has been working as a children's book designer. These days she works freelance - illustrating, writing and designing children's books from her flat in south London.

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.

Abridged Edition

Penguin Readers Level 7: White Teeth (ELT Graded Reader)

Penguin Readers is an ELT graded reader series for learners of English as a foreign language. With carefully adapted text, new illustrations and language learning exercises, the print edition also includes instructions to access supporting material online. 
 
Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction, introducing language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. 
 
The eight levels of Penguin Readers follow the Common European Framework of Reference for language learning (CEFR). Exercises at the back of each Reader help language learners to practise grammar, vocabulary, and key exam skills. Before, during and after-reading questions test readers' story comprehension and develop vocabulary. 
 
Visit the Penguin Readers website 
Exclusively with the print edition, readers can unlock online resources including a digital book, audio edition, lesson plans and answer keys. 
 
White Teeth is the story of three very different families who live close together in London in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bowdens are part-Jamaican; the Iqbals are from Bangladesh; and the Chalfens are white. The story looks at how people's pasts affect their lives now, and the lives and futures of their children.

With carefully adapted text, new illustrations, language practise activities and additional online resources, the Penguin Readers series introduces language learners to bestselling authors and compelling content. Titles include popular classics, exciting contemporary fiction, and thought-provoking non-fiction. 
 
White Teeth, a Level 7 Reader, is B2 in the CEFR framework. The longer text is made up of sentences with up to four clauses, introducing future perfect simple, mixed conditionals, past perfect continuous, mixed conditionals, more complex passive forms and modals for deduction in the past. 
 
White Teeth is the story of three very different families who live close together in London in the 1980s and 1990s. The Bowdens are part-Jamaican; the Iqbals are from Bangladesh; and the Chalfens white. The story looks at how people's pasts affect their lives now, and the lives and futures of their children.

Zadie Smith

Eclectic in her tastes, centrifugal in her style, Smith as an essayist loves to stretch her frame

It’s hard to think of a living essayist who is better company on the page — walking you through her thoughts, curious about everything and everyone, including (unusually) the reader

In this keenly awaited new collection, Zadie Smith brings her unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects which have captured her attention in recent years. 
 
She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola, Kara Walker and Celia Paul. She invites us along to the movies, to see and to think about Tár, and to Glastonbury to witness the ascendance of Stormzy. She takes us on a walk down Kilburn High Road in her beloved North West London and invites us to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. She considers changes of government on both sides of the Atlantic – and the meaning of ‘the commons’ in all our lives. 
 
Throughout this thrilling collection, Zadie Smith shows us once again her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

Dead and Alive

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From novels to essay collections, here's our guide to reading the award-winning author's work.

Zadie Smith

Praise for Dead and Alive

Eclectic in her tastes, centrifugal in her style, Smith as an essayist loves to stretch her frame

It’s hard to think of a living essayist who is better company on the page — walking you through her thoughts, curious about everything and everyone, including (unusually) the reader

Books by Zadie Smith

Articles featuring Zadie Smith