White Teeth
Zadie Smith (2000)
“A riotously funny, heartbreaking novel about two families, three generations, and the question of whether any of us can ever escape where we came from.”
Why This Book Matters
White Teeth was the defining British novel of 2000 — the moment when contemporary multicultural Britain saw itself reflected in serious literary fiction for the first time. Smith was twenty-four, mixed-race, writing about Bangladeshi and Jamaican families in North London with Dickensian confidence. It announced both a new voice and a new subject for British fiction.
Firsts & Innovations
First major British novel to make multicultural London its subject rather than its setting — previous novels used multicultural London as backdrop, White Teeth made it the argument
Established the 'postcolonial comic novel' as a viable British literary form — mixing Rushdie's postcolonial weight with English social comedy
Introduced the second-generation British-Asian experience to mainstream literary fiction at the level of serious analysis rather than social problem
Cultural Impact
Won the Whitbread First Novel Award, Guardian First Book Award, and James Tait Black Memorial Prize
Adapted for Channel 4 television in 2002
Became the go-to text for discussions of British multiculturalism in both academic and journalistic contexts
Made Zadie Smith a cultural as well as literary figure — her essays and subsequent novels are read partly through the lens White Teeth established
Regularly cited as one of the defining novels of the 2000s in British literary culture
Anticipated the post-9/11 cultural anxieties about Islamic radicalism and British identity before 9/11 happened
Banned & Challenged
Not widely banned, but frequently challenged in syllabi for its frank sexual content, drug use, and treatment of religion. Some conservative Muslim communities have objected to Smith's portrayal of Islamic radicalism as partly absurd.