Zadie Smith at 25 Years: 'I Am So Filled with Regret'

Zadie Smith, the author of "White Teeth," "On Beauty" and "The Fraud," named one emotion above all others in a conversation with NPR's Rachel Martin: regret. The interview, recorded last year for the Wild Card podcast and rebroadcast as "White Teeth" marks its 25th anniversary, shows a writer reassessing the life her books consumed.

"I think that's the one I know very well," Smith said of regret, laughing at her own answer.

The exchange came from the Wild Card deck format, in which each guest draws a card and answers a big question about their life. Martin asked what emotion Smith understands better than all the others. The answer arrived without hesitation.

Why regret?

Smith argued that regret shapes most lives yet rarely gets spoken aloud, especially in America. "People's lives are so profoundly shot through with regret, and they don't talk about it very often, particularly in America," she said. "It's like a failure."

She pointed to a familiar cultural reflex: the public declaration of "no regrets." "I'm always hearing people on television saying, no regrets — sorry, not sorry. I'm like, wow, dude... I am so sorry," Smith said. "I am so filled with regret. It must be amazing never to feel sorry."

Her reasoning was blunt. "You get one life, you know, and I'm so hungry for life that I could live it, like, 10 times. And once, it's — you know, it's a tough deal."

What does she wish she had done differently?

Pressed by Martin to name one thing, Smith turned her criticism on her own vocation. "I just wish I was less selfish. Writing is a very selfish thing to have done with your time, and it takes up all the time," she said.

She described decades of unbroken work. "I just wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote and wrote, which is great, but there's a lot of other things in life that you can do apart from that."

Martin called time's limits "the bummer." Smith agreed — and then described a change already underway. "Once I realized it, I've taken steps. I do other things now. I'm out in my community. I'm volunteering. I'm, like, engaged, and it feels so much better than sitting at a desk just writing every day."

The solitude of the desk, Martin suggested, must also be lonely. Smith confirmed it. "It is a little bit lonely."

COVID as a mirror

The pandemic, Smith said, exposed how abnormal her daily routine really is. "During COVID, when everybody was freaking out, I took it kind of personally 'cause it's like, wait — so the thing you hate is my life?"

While much of the world dreaded confinement at home, Smith had lived that way for three decades. "You hate my life, but I've been living my life for 30 years. And to you, it's the worst thing imaginable," she said.

The moment became what she called a wake-up call. "This is not normal. People don't enjoy this — this thing that you do every day. You should try doing something else."

NPR host Scott Detrow noted that a longer conversation with Zadie Smith is available by searching for Wild Card with Rachel Martin on YouTube.

Twenty-five years after "White Teeth" made her name, Smith's own verdict on the writing life is double-edged: she does not regret the books, but she regrets the time they took — and she is now spending that time differently.