Dead and Alive: Essays

Zadie Smith

Book cover for Dead and Alive: Essays
Book cover for Dead and Alive: Essays
Book cover for Dead and Alive: Essays
Book cover for Dead and Alive: Essays

Dead and Alive: Essays

Dead and Alive: Essays

Zadie Smith

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Description

A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays

In this eagerly awaited new collection, Zadie Smith brings her unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years.

She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola, Kara Walker and Celia Paul. She invites us along to the movies, to see and to think about Tรกr, and to New York to reflect on the spontaneous moments that connect us. She takes us on a walk down Kilburn High Road in her beloved North-West London and welcomes us to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. She considers changes of government on both sides of the Atlantic - and the meaning of 'the commons' in all our lives.

Throughout this thrilling collection, Zadie Smith shows us once again her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

About the Author

Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time, and The Fraud; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and a play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.

Critical Reviews

"Novelist and critic Smith brings an incisive eye and keen wit to art, music, fiction, politics, and more in this wide-ranging essay collection . . . Smith delivers original insights couched in sly, artful prose . . . Readers will be rewarded by this unforgettable collection." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Novelist and critic Smith brings an incisive eye and keen wit to art, music, fiction, politics, and more in this wide-ranging essay collection . . . Smith delivers original insights couched in sly, artful prose . . . Readers will be rewarded by this unforgettable collection." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Smith is a consummate and perpetual essayist. Her fourth collection contains 30 penetrating, nimble, witty, and affecting pieces, most from the past half-dozen years . . . A treasury of candid, thoughtful, caring, and exhilarating inquires." --Booklist

Publishing Information

Publisher: Penguin Press
Pub date: 2025-10-28
Length: 352 pages

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