I don't think of it as a theme, or even a significant thing about the city.

Rather, Smith explains she could not have written about London, a highly diverse city, without addressing such issues: 'I was just trying to approach London. Although White Teeth deals unabashedly with issues of race, ethnicity, culture, and prejudice, Smith claims this was not a conscious goal. Smith cites television as a significant influence on the novel, particularly in the comedic timing of Archie and Samad's relationship. That was the greatest pleasure of it, because all I wanted to be was a writer.'Īccording to Smith, White Teeth is not autobiographical, although she was inspired by her mixed-race family history, set the novel in her childhood neighborhood of Willesden, and calls the scene where Archie and Clara meet, 'a bastardized version of how parents met.' Originally, Smith simply wanted to write a novel about a man who lives, 'a good life by accident' a concept around which she developed the story. Despite such acclaim, Smith remained humble after White Teeth's release, maintaining that her ambition was not fame, but to hone her craft: 'Even if I never write anything which anybody ever buys and reads again, White Teeth is enough for me always to be able to publish some little thing some day. White Teeth also won two EMMAs (BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards) for Best Book/Novel and Best Female Media Newcomer, and was shortlisted for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, Orange Prize for Fiction, and Author's Club First Novel Award.

Though Smith was only 25 years old upon White Teeth's release, she received many awards, including the Guardian First Book Award, Whitbread First Novel Award, and Commonwealth Writers Prize (Overall Winner, Best First Book). Though packed with tangential references to various eras and earlier generations, it focuses primarily on the parents and children of the culturally and ethnically diverse Jones, Iqbal, and Chalfen families. White Teeth is an examination of contemporary London, told from a kaleidoscopic range of viewpoints. Smith's unique storytelling style inspired the term 'hysterical realism,' placing her among the ranks of such writers as Salman Rushdie and Mikhail Bulgakov. The novel was released in 2000 to an enthusiastic and universally positive response. The novel began as a short story, and a single chapter gained Smith a contract with a prominent literary agency. White Teeth is Zadie Smith's acclaimed debut novel, first published when she had barely finished college.

White teeth novel