This course will use Zadie Smith’s writing as a means of interacting with the city of London. Of all contemporary writers, there is perhaps nobody better for this task than Zadie Smith. All her novels are deeply engaged with London in some way. Her first novel, White Teeth (2000), was set almost entirely in northwestern London and featured concluding scenes in Trafalgar Square. NW (2012) ends with a long walk across North London. Swing Time (2016) begins and ends with walks across the Hungerford Bridge. In our course, we will trace these and other London scenes to understand how they work in Smith’s award-winning fiction, but also as a basis for our own explorations of the city.
We will also use Smith’s essays as guides for interacting with the city. Her essay on the British painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, for example, can serve as a lens for viewing Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings in the Tate Modern. Her essay “Fences: A Brexit Diary” can serve as a prompt for exploring the way that London’s built environment divides its population. Smith’s portrait, painted by Nigerian American artist Toyin Ojih Odutola, hangs in London’s National Portrait Gallery, and will likely be the source of a field trip and/or writing assignment. As with Smith’s fiction, students will not only use these essays and artworks to understand Zadie Smith’s essays, but as a basis for their own explorations and writing assignments while in London.
