Zadie Smith on her groundbreaking debut, White Teeth, 25 years on: ‘I never think about my novels a year after I’ve written them’ The Cambridge student was only 24 when she released her ostentatious debut.
White Teeth went on to win five prominent literary awards, though it was notably overlooked for the prestigious Orange Prize, with one judge reportedly saying of Smith’s shot at winning: “Over my dead body.” All par for the course; after all, success breeds contempt.
Yes, there is an eagerness to please (and to entertain, always) that can perhaps be read now as a beginner’s naivety – and Smith has certainly become a far more controlled writer in subsequent novels – but White Teeth remains terrific fun.
The novel went on to sell over 6 million copies, and was lavished with flattering reviews – Rushdie himself called it “astonishingly assured”, while i-D magazine suggested that “Zadie Smith’s cracked it big style.” The Daily Telegraph proclaimed her the “George Eliot of multiculturalism”.
In early 2000, the book that Zadie Smith had begun writing at Cambridge University “as a way of managing anxiety about my exams” entered the world.
