White Teeth is the sweeping, epic multicultural story of three families-the Joneses, the Iqbals, and the Chalfens, (one “mixed” family, one Indian, one *very* white, respectively). Yet it was still a giddy, hopeful, perhaps blindly optimistic time, right before our late-90s economic boom collapsed along with the World Trade Center.Įntertainment Weekly hailed her as the “It Lit Debutante.” Salman Rushdie declared the novel, “an astonishingly assured debut.” It was in the window of every bookstore. Then 24-year-old Zadie Smith’s debut novel was released to great acclaim in January 2000, that cultural moment when we were all taking solace that Y2K didn’t collapse the grid. With this prologue and the above nota bene out of th e way, here’s why I think White Teeth is so important, perhaps now more than ever.įirst, for those who have not read the book, here is some attempted enticement.

(I still have that old, old email.) So, that’s why: because I freak out about White Teeth anytime anyone brings up Zadie Smith. They will also see me beam with pride as I say that she wrote me back and commented that some of my points were pretty good. Smith with said paper at an author event in Kansas City.

Anyone who has mentioned Zadie Smith within earshot of me will most likely have been told (by me!) a well-worn, old story of writing a grad school paper on White Teeth and then accosting Ms. In celebration of Zadie Smith’s visit to Lawrence-thanks to our lovely friends at KU’s Hall Center for the Humanities-I was asked to write a piece about Zadie Smith.

Zadie smith white