Zadie Smith, one of Britain’s most talented young novelists, will visit Milton Academy on December 10 as part of the Bingham Lecture Series.
At the age of 21, while a senior at Cambridge University, Zadie Smith wrote her first novel, White Teeth. Described by many as an inspiring novel full of humor and empathy, the first 100 pages of her manuscript earned Zadie representation from the prestigious Andrew Wylie Agency and ultimately Penguin Press bought the novel in a frenzied auction.
White Teeth, a tale that spans 25 years of two families’ assimilation in North London, has won awards for Best Book and Best Female Newcomer at the BT Emma Awards (Ethnic and Multicultural Media Awards), the Guardian First Book Award, the Whitbread Prize for a first novel in 2000, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction 2000, the W.H. Smith Book Award for New Talent, the Frankfurt eBook Award for Best Fiction Work Originally Published in 2000 and both the Commonwealth Writers First Book Award and Overall Commonwealth Writers Prize.
Smith’s second novel, The Autograph Man, the tale of Alex-Li Tandem, a Chinese-Jewish North Londoner whose trading in celebrity autographs begins his own personal journey to enlightenment, proves that the success of her first novel was not beginner’s luck.
Zadie Smith is currently participating in a postgraduate course on the Modern European Novel at Harvard University.
Established in 1987 by the Bingham Family, Barry, Edith and Emily ’83, the Bingham Lecture series brings writers, historians and journalists to speak and work with students and faculty at Milton each year.
