Novelist Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975 to an English father and a Jamaican mother, an upbringing that would profoundly shape her work. She studied English at the University of Cambridge, graduating in 1997, and quickly emerged as one of the most vital literary voices of her generation.
Her debut novel, White Teeth, announced Smith as a major talent with its exuberant, incisive portrait of multicultural London, told through the intertwined lives of three ethnically diverse families. The novel won numerous honors, including the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread First Novel Award, and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and was shortlisted for several major literary awards. Translated into more than twenty languages, White Teeth was adapted for television and the stage, later named one of the New York Public Library’s 125 most important books of the last 125 years and included on the New York Times list of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century. A 25th anniversary edition with a new foreword appeared in 2025.
Smith’s subsequent novels have confirmed her range and ambition. The Autograph Man won the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize, while On Beauty received the Orange Prize for Fiction and was widely hailed as a modern classic. NW earned multiple shortlists and was adapted into a BBC television film, and Swing Time became a New York Times bestseller and a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her most recent novel, The Fraud, a historical work inspired by the Tichborne Trial, was an immediate bestseller and one of the most acclaimed books of 2023.
In addition to fiction, Smith is an esteemed essayist and playwright. Her essay collections have received major awards, and her play The Wife of Willesden won the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books, Smith has received numerous international honors and is a member of several prestigious literary academies. She lives in London.
Educated at King’s College, Cambridge, English literature studies.
Published early stories in The Mays Anthology at Cambridge.
Signed literary representation with A. P. Watt agency.
Fellow of Royal Society of Literature, elected 2002.
Explores multicultural identity, race, class, history, and contemporary British society.
Frequent contributor to The New Yorker and New York Review Books.
Guest editor for BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Appeared on BBC Radio 4 Desert Island Discs.
BBC adapted NW into television film, broadcast 2016.
White Teeth adapted for television shortly after publication.
The Wife of Willesden staged following London Borough Culture selection.
Featured in Bottega Veneta anniversary campaign, photographed Jack Davison.
White Teeth bestseller, winning Whitbread, Guardian, Commonwealth, James Tait Black prizes.
The Autograph Man won Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize.
On Beauty won Orange Prize, Anisfield-Wolf Award, Booker shortlisted.
NW shortlisted Ondaatje Prize and Women’s Prize Fiction.
Swing Time longlisted Man Booker Prize 2017.
National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism, Feel Free.
Grammy Award winner, Album of the Year, featured artist Jon Batiste.
PEN/Audible Literary Service Award recipient for literary contributions.
Bodley Medal awarded for outstanding contributions to literature.
Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for Most Promising Playwright.
Langston Hughes Medal awarded by City College New York.
Welt-Literaturpreis recipient for international literary influence.
Westport Prize awarded to The Fraud, inaugural year.
Finalist Pulitzer Prize for Criticism, film review Tár.
Elected American Academy of Arts & Sciences, 2023.
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