Zadie Smith facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Zadie Smith
FRSL
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Smith announcing the 2010 National Book Critics Circle award finalists in fiction
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| Born | Sadie Smith 25 October 1975 London, England |
| Occupation |
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| Education | King's College, Cambridge (BA) |
| Period | 2000–present |
| Literary movement |
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| Notable works | White Teeth (2000) On Beauty (2005) NW (2012) Swing Time (2016) |
| Spouse |
Nick Laird
(m. 2004) |
| Children | 2 |
| Relatives | Ben Bailey Smith (brother) |
Zadie Smith is a famous English writer. She writes novels, essays, and short stories. Born Sadie Smith on October 25, 1975, she became well-known with her first novel, White Teeth, in 2000. It was a huge success and won many awards. In 2010, she became a professor of creative writing at New York University.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Zadie Smith was born in Willesden, London, on October 25, 1975. Her mother, Yvonne Bailey, was from Jamaica, and her father, Harvey Smith, was English. When she was 14, she changed her first name from Sadie to Zadie.
Her parents divorced when she was a teenager. Zadie has a half-sister, a half-brother, and two younger brothers. One of her brothers is the rapper and comedian Doc Brown.
As a child, Zadie loved tap dancing. In her teenage years, she thought about a career in musical theatre. While at university, she earned money as a jazz singer. She also wanted to become a journalist.
School and University
Zadie went to local schools, Malorees Junior School and Hampstead Comprehensive School. Later, she studied English literature at King's College, Cambridge. She graduated with good grades. While at Cambridge, she tried out for the Cambridge Footlights comedy group but was not successful.
At Cambridge, Zadie published several short stories. These stories appeared in a collection of new student writing called The Mays Anthology. A publisher noticed her work and offered her a contract for her first novel. She then found a literary agent to help her.
Writing Career
Zadie Smith's first novel, White Teeth, was a big hit even before it was finished. In 1997, publishers started bidding for the rights to her book. Hamish Hamilton won the auction. Zadie finished White Teeth during her last year at the University of Cambridge.
When the book was published in 2000, it quickly became a best-seller. It received great reviews from around the world. It also won several awards, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. In 2002, White Teeth was even made into a television series.
Later Novels and Essays
Smith's second novel, The Autograph Man, came out in 2002. It sold well, but critics did not like it as much as White Teeth.
After this, Zadie visited the United States. She was a Fellow at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute at Harvard University. She began working on a book of essays called The Morality of the Novel. Some of these essays later appeared in her collection Changing My Mind in 2009.
Her third novel, On Beauty, was published in 2005. This book was set mostly in Boston. It received more praise than The Autograph Man. It was nominated for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2006.
In the same year, Smith released Martha and Hanwell. This book contained two short stories about troubled characters. These stories had first appeared in Granta and The New Yorker magazines.
In 2010, Zadie Smith became a full professor of fiction at New York University. She also wrote reviews for Harper's Magazine and often contributed to The New York Review of Books. In 2010, she shared her "10 rules for writing fiction" with The Guardian newspaper. One rule was: "Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand – but tell it."
Recent Works
Smith's novel NW was published in 2012. It takes place in the Kilburn area of north-west London. The title refers to the local postcode, NW6. The novel was nominated for the Royal Society of Literature's Ondaatje Prize. NW was also turned into a BBC television film in 2016.
In 2015, it was announced that Zadie Smith and her husband, Nick Laird, were working on a science fiction movie script. The film, called High Life, was directed by Claire Denis. Smith later said her role was mainly to help improve the English dialogue.
Her fifth novel, Swing Time, came out in 2016. It was inspired by her childhood love of tap dancing. This book was also longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2017.
In 2019, Smith's first collection of short stories, Grand Union, was published. In 2020, she released a collection of six essays called Intimations. She donated the money from this book to charity.
In 2021, Smith's first play, The Wife of Willesden, opened. She wrote it after her London borough, Brent, was chosen as the 2020 London Borough of Culture. She adapted "The Wife of Bath's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Her play sets the story in modern London, with a pub crawl instead of a pilgrimage.
In 2023, Smith published a historical novel called The Fraud. She had been working on it since 2020. The book focuses on Arthur Orton, who was part of a famous 19th-century court case about identity theft.
Personal Life
Zadie Smith met her husband, Nick Laird, at the University of Cambridge. They got married in 2004. Smith dedicated her novel On Beauty to him.
The couple lived in Rome, Italy, for a year. They have also lived in New York City and the Kilburn area of London. They have two children.
Smith describes herself as "unreligious." She was not raised in a religion but is curious about how it affects others. She sees her own way of thinking as a "sentimental humanist."
Zadie Smith's favorite book is Middlemarch by George Eliot. She has called it "an extraordinary achievement in a novel."
Awards and Recognition
Zadie Smith has received many awards and honors for her writing.
- In 2002, she became a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
- In 2004, a BBC poll named her one of the top twenty most influential people in British culture.
- Time magazine included her novel White Teeth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005.
List of Awards
- White Teeth:
- Won the Whitbread First Novel Award
- Won the Guardian First Book Award
- Won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
- Won the Commonwealth Writers’ First Book Award
- The Autograph Man:
- Won the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize
- On Beauty:
- Won the Commonwealth Writers’ Best Book Award (Eurasia Section)
- Won the Orange Prize for Fiction
- Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize
- NW:
- Shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize
- Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction
- Swing Time:
- Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017
- Granta magazine listed her as one of the Best of Young British Novelists in 2003 and 2013.
- 2016: Welt-Literaturpreis
- 2017: Langston Hughes Medal
- 2019: Infinity Award, Critical Writing and Research, International Center of Photography
- 2018: National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for Feel Free
- 2020: Grand Union was a finalist for The Story Prize
- 2022: Won a Grammy Award for Album of the Year as a featured artist on We Are by Jon Batiste
- 2022: Received the Bodley Medal, a top honor from the Bodleian Libraries.
- 2022: PEN/Audible Literary Service Award for her achievements as a writer.
- 2022: Critics' Circle Theatre Award for "Most Promising Playwright" (for The Wife of Willesden)
- 2023: The Fraud won the first Westport Prize for Literature.
- 2024: Finalist for Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for her review of the film 'Tár'.
See also
In Spanish: Zadie Smith para niños
