Zadie Smith, the acclaimed author of White Teeth and On Beauty, told a literary festival audience on Sunday that she rarely reads male authors anymore. Speaking at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge about her latest essay collection, Dead and Alive, Smith said her reading habits have 'completely flipped compared to when I was young.'
Shift in Reading Preferences
When asked by host Tom Gatti, the Observer literary editor, whether she was referring to the 'much-discussed death of the male novelist,' Smith clarified: 'No, I have read some really good ones recently, actually by millennial men, really fascinating, balls-to-the-wall novels – I think they’ve got nothing to lose so they’re like, “let’s do this.”' Last year, she recommended David Szalay's Flesh among her holiday reading picks for the Guardian, ahead of it winning the Booker Prize.
However, Smith admitted she is 'almost embarrassed to say' that she mainly reads women now. 'Being a woman and getting older, you become enormously impatient with anything other than other older women,' she added. 'All I read now is Helen Garner because I want wisdom.'
Focus on Female Artists
Smith discussed the female artists she writes about in Dead and Alive, including Joan Didion, Kara Walker, and Celia Paul. 'I was born in 1975, and what’s happened since then in women’s art is so cheering and so extraordinary, that I just wanted to log it,' she said. She recalled sitting in her room as a teenager, trying to think of female writers who 'hadn’t been dead 250 years,' and finding it difficult. While there were authors like AS Byatt, Margaret Drabble, and Toni Morrison, Smith noted that 'they didn’t write in a way that I would have noticed aged 12, 13.'
When recommending other essayists, Smith mentioned men such as John Berger, Stuart Hall, and James Baldwin, alongside Joan Didion, Anne Enright, and Susan Sontag.
Political Commentary
Smith also offered remarks on the current political landscape. 'We’re seeing politics done by sociopaths right now,' she said. Later, she added that 'what we call the Labour party has not been the Labour party since Kinnock. That’s a long line of disappointment.'
Asked whether Britain is more inclusive now than when she grew up in London, Smith replied: 'For me, that’s a purely economic question, and if people are going to be as poor as they’re being made right now, then no, it’s far less inclusive.'
New Novel in the Works
Smith revealed she is working on a new novel about teenagers in the 1990s. Her editor recently told her the book is 'going to shock people because of all the things that [were] possible,' compared with the opportunities young people have today. 'This is a disappeared world,' Smith said.
