When she writes about her childhood, or reflects, thrillingly, on what Brexit means to her, I recognise every word, every thought, every connection. Of course, her experiences of this were a little sharper than mine – she was a biracial girl growing up in the inner city, I was a white boy in the suburbs.
Her tone and references and outlook on life seem intimately familiar, drawn as they are, like mine, from that optimistic, multicultural jumble that was London in the 90s, when ‘multicultural’ wasn't yet a dirty word and when most things were going steadily, boringly in the right direction. Though I still haven't read any of her fiction, I really feel, on the strength of these essays, that Zadie Smith is My Kind Of People. This is literary journalism at its zenith. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive-and never any less than perfect company.
What is The Social Network-and Facebook itself-really about? "It's a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore." Why do we love libraries? "Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay." What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? "So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we'd just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes-and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat." Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, "Joy," and, "Find Your Beach," Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith's own life. Arranged into five sections-In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free-this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right. From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world's preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist.
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