Smith’s novels are set in motion by character, complex portraits that are revelatory of race and class.” -Karen Long, Los Angeles Times Its precision is thrilling even as it grows into a book-length meditation on cultural appropriation, played out on a celebrity-besotted global stage. The work is so absorbing that a reader might flip it open randomly and be immediately caught up.

Smith burnishes her place in the literary firmament with her fifth novel. Swing Time may not parse easily and fits no mold, but it is uncommonly full of life.” -Claire Messud, The New York Review of Books “A dance itself, syncopated, unexpected, and vital. Swing Time uses its extraordinary breadth and its syncopated structure to turn the issues of race and class in every direction…We finally have a big social novel nimble enough to keep all its diverse parts moving gracefully toward a vision of what really matters in this life when the music stops.” -Ron Charles, Washington Post Smith’s attention to the grace notes of friendship is as precise as ever. “This is a story at once intimate and global, as much about childhood friendship as international aid, as fascinated by the fate of an unemployed single mother as it is by the omnipotence of a world-class singer. Zadie Smith's newest book, Grand Union, published in 2019. Tracey makes it to the chorus line but struggles with adult life, while her friend leaves the old neighborhood behind, traveling the world as an assistant to a famous singer, Aimee, observing close up how the one percent live.īut when Aimee develops grand philanthropic ambitions, the story moves from London to West Africa, where diaspora tourists travel back in time to find their roots, young men risk their lives to escape into a different future, the women dance just like Tracey-the same twists, the same shakes-and the origins of a profound inequality are not a matter of distant history, but a present dance to the music of time. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. Two brown girls dream of being dancers-but only one, Tracey, has talent. Longlisted for the Man Booker PrizeĪn ambitious, exuberant new novel moving from North West London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty.Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.“A sweeping meditation on art, race, and identity that may be most ambitious work yet.” - EsquireĪ New York Times bestseller “Smith’s thrilling cultural insights never overshadow the wholeness of her characters, who are so keenly observed that one feels witness to their lives.” -O, The Oprah Magazine

Swing time novel