*A WATERSTONES PAPERBACK OF THE YEAR 2026*
An illuminating new essay collection from one of the most
distinctive, exciting and acclaimed writers of her generation, Zadie Smith
‘Zadie Smith is a wonderful essayist. She is a natural.
She writes as she thinks, and she thinks crisply and exactly’ – Tessa Hadley, Guardian
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.
About the Author
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White
Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time
and The Fraud; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia;
four collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free, Intimations
and Dead and Alive; 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.
