New Books Network

In this 2019 episode, John interviews the celebrated British writer Zadie Smith. The conversation quickly moves through Brexit (oh, the inhumanity!) and what it means to be a London–no, a Northwest London–writer before arriving at her case against identity politics. That case is bolstered by a discussion of Hannah Arendt on the difference between who and what a person is.

Zadie and John also touch on the purpose of criticism and why it gets harder to hate as you (middle) age. She reveals an affection for “talkies” (as a “90’s kid,” she can’t help her fondness for Quentin Tarantino); asks whether young novelists in England need to write a book about Henry VIII just to break into bookstores; hears Hegel talking to Kierkegaard, and Jane Austen failing to talk to Jean Genet. Lastly, in Recallable Books, Zadie recommends Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s The Bathroom.

Transcript of the episode here.

Mentioned:

• Zadie Smith, White Teeth, NW, Swing Time, “Two Paths for the Novel” “Embassy of Cambodia,” Joni Mitchell: Some Notes on Attunement” “Zadie Smith on J G Ballard’s Crash“
• Willa Cather, Song of the Lark (1915, revised 1932)
• Elif Batuman, The Idiot
• Charlotte Bronte, The Professor and Villette
• George Eliot, Middlemarch
• Pauline Kael, various film reviews
• Quentin Tarantino, Once Upon a Time…In Hollywood
• Ursula Le Guin, “The Story’s Where I Go: An Interview”
• Doris Lessing, The Fifth Child
• Hilary Mantel, Beyond Black and Wolf Hall
• Dexter Filkins, “The Moral Logic of Humanitarian Intervention” (on Samantha Power)
• Patti Smith, Just Kids
• Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge, Olive Again
• Gary Winick (dir.), Thirteen Going on Thirty (starring Jennifer Garner, not Anne Hathaway)
• Sally Rooney, Normal People
• Toyin Ojih Odutola
• Matthew Lopez, The Inheritance
• Jean-Philippe Toussaint, The Bathroom



Elizabeth Ferry is Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University. Email: ferry@brandeis.edu. John Plotz is Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative. Email: plotz@brandeis.edu.

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