Zadie Smith, página 2 de 6

The Book of Other People is about character. Twenty-five or so outstanding writers have been asked by Zadie Smith to make up a fictional character. By any measure, creating character is at the heart of the fictional enterprise, and this book concentrates on writers who share a talent for making something recognizably human out of words (and, in the case of the graphic novelists, pictures). But the purpose of the book is variety: straight realismif such a thing existsis not the point. There are as many ways to create character as there are writers, and this anthology features a rich assortment of exceptional examples.

Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, this book also includes one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of c

Alex-li Tandem, whose mother is Chinese and father (who died young) was Jewish, collects the autographs of celebrities. He has a massive crush on an aging movie star named Kitty Alexander, and in the course of searching for her autograph he encounters adventures that include the mammoth Autographicana Fair in New York. A New York Times Notable Book for 2002.

Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. He hunts for names on paper in a huge network of desire, collecting them, selling them and occasionally faking them; offering people a little piece of fame. To him, enlightenment is some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated or sold.

Sin duda uno de los autores jóvenes más importantes que han surgido en la literatura anglosajona de los últimos años, la británica Zadie Smith asombró a la crítica y al público lector cuando, con apenas veintidos años, revelo en esta excepcional primera novela una inaudita capacidad para registrar las grandezas y miserias humanas con un ojo observador y distante, pleno de humor y sabia ironia. Galardonada con los premios Whitbread y Guardian, ademas de quedar finalista en todos los demas concursos literarios importantes de Gran Bretaña, Dientes blancos ha sido portada del New York Times y Le Monde y, por si fuera poco, ha ocupado los primeros puestos en las listas de libros mas vendidos en ambas orillas del Atlantico. Situado en un barrio londinense de inmigrantes, el inmenso fresco humano que dibuja la autora tiene como epicentro las familias de Archie Jones y Samad Iqbal, dos ex combatientes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial que vuelven a encontrarse despues de treinta años sin verse. Archie esta casado con una jamaicana exuberante que ha perdido los dientes frontales, y Samad con Alsana, bengali como el, y con las ideas muy claras. Uno trabaja en un taller de manipulados de papel y el otro se gana el sustento de camarero en un restaurante, pero su mayor problema no ha sido la guerra, ni la falta de dinero, ni el hecho de estar casados con mujeres jovenes de caracter endemoniado. No, la prueba mas dura que les ha deparado la vida es la relacion con sus hijos. Estos, que deberian llevar a cabo los proyectos fracasados de sus padres, se rebelan. Se rebelan contra el racismo britanico, contra su propia clase social, incluso contra sus origenes, su historia y su barrio. Asi, cada uno a su manera, son la prueba viviente de lo dificil que resulta escapar del propio destino. Con una acertada mezcla de satira extravagante y humor corrosivo, y una profusion de personajes y situaciones que mantienen en vilo al lector, Zadie Smith exhibe una consumada habilidad de novelista, como si tuviera años de experiencia en el oficio. La extraordinari

Èpica i íntima, alegre i profunda, Dents blanques fa una travessia per tota la mala fe del segle, el passat i el present, l'Orient i l'Occident - terratremols, guerra, nazis, motins, apocalipsi i robatori de terres - i es una primera novel.la inoblidable, una comedia brillant.

Situado en un barrio londinense de inmigrantes, el inmenso fresco humano que dibuja esta joven autora, tiene como epicentro las familias de Archie Jones y Samad Iqbal, dos ex combatientes de la Segunda Guerra Mundial que se encuentran despues de treinta años sin verse. Un fantastico retrato del Londres multirracial de fin de siglo y la preocupacion de sus habitantes por la idea de ser britanicos.

White Teeth is still one of the most talked-about fictional debuts of recent years. Meet the Joneses and the Iqbals, two families brought together by friendship, tangled histories and the London suburb of Willesden Green... White Teeth deals with - among many other things - friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle.

Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn''t like Rembrandt, is an Englishman abroad and a long-suffering professor at Wellington, a liberal New England arts college. He has been married for thirty years to Kiki, an American woman who no longer resembles the sexy activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths: Levi quests after authentic blackness, Zora believes that intellectuals can redeem everybody, and Jerome struggles to be a believer in a family of strict atheists. Faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Or the encore.Then Jerome, Howard''s older son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon Monty Kipps, and the two families find themselves thrown together in a beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register. An infidelity, a death, and a legacy set in motion a chain of events that sees all parties forced to examine the unarticulated assumptions which underpin their lives. How do you choose the work on which to spend your life? Why do you love the people you love? Do you really believe what you claim to? And what is the beautiful thing, and how far will you go to get it?Set on both sides of the Atlantic, Zadie Smith''s third novel is a brilliant analysis of family life, the institution of marriage, intersections of the personal and political, and an honest look at people''s deceptions. It is also, as you might expect, very funny indeed.

''White Teeth'' is a comic epic of multicultural Britain which tells the story of immigrants in England over a period of 40 years.

Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. He hunts for them, collects them, sells them, occasionally fakes them - all to give the people a little piece of Fame. But what does Alex want? Only the return of his father, the re-instatement of some kind of benevolent God figure, the end of religion, something for his headache, three different girls, infinite grace, and the rare autograph of a Forties movie actress. With fries. The Autograph Man is a deeply funny, existential tour around the hollow things of modernity - celebrity, cinema and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience.