NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The blockbuster debut novel from “a preternaturally gifted” writer (The New York Times) and author of On Beauty and Swing Time—set against London’s racial and cultural tapestry, reveling in the ecstatic hodgepodge of modern life, flirting with disaster, and embracing the comedy of daily existence.

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

Zadie Smith’s dazzling debut caught critics grasping for comparisons and deciding on everyone from Charles Dickens to Salman Rushdie to John Irving and Martin Amis. But the truth is that Zadie Smith’s voice is remarkably, fluently, and altogether wonderfully her own.

At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith. 

BIO

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.

REVIEWS

A PARADE BEST BOOK OF ALL TIME

“A preternaturally gifted new writer [with] a voice that’s street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time.” -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Brilliant…. Smith is a master at detail…a postmodern Charles Dickens…[Smith’s] rich storytelling and wicked wit are suited to the sights and smells of the world that England has inherited.” -- The Washington Post

“[A] vibrant, rollicking first novel about race and idenity…[Smith’s] prickly wit is affectionate and poignant.” -- People

“[A] dazzling intergenerational first novel…wonderfully inventive…playful yet unaffected, mongrel yet cohesive, profound yet funny, vernacular yet lyrical.” -- Los Angeles Times

“[A] marvel of a debut novel. . .Reminscent of both Salman Rushdie and John Irving, White Teeth is a comic, canny, sprawling tale, adeptly held together by Smith’s literary sleight of hand.” -- Entertainment Weekly

“A magnificent and audacious novel, jampacked with memorable characters and challenging ideas.” -- The Atlanta Journal & Constitution

“Ambitious, earnest and irreverent. . . Smith has a real talent for comedy and a fond eye for human foibles.”  -- The Wall Street Journal

“Wonderful…. Zadie Smith…possesses a more than ordinary share of talent.” -- USA Today

“[White Teeth] is, like the London it portrays, a restless hybrid of voices, tones, and textures…with a raucous energy and confidence.” -- The New York Times Book Review

[P]  Vintage  /  June 12, 2001

0.98" H x 8.63" L x 5.13" W (0.76 lbs) 464 pages