Zadie Smith tells Dua Lipa culture clashes now feel ‘existential’

By Elena Vasquez

White Teeth was published in 2000, when Zadie Smith was 24. At the Southbank Centre’s London literature festival, the novelist told interviewer Dua Lipa that unemployment, lack of housing, failing schools and hospitals had made cultural difference feel “existential.” Smith linked those divisions to the demise of Britain’s “incredible, historic” welfare system.

What changed since the 1980s and 1990s?

Lipa asked how attitudes toward multiculturalism had changed since the 80s and 90s, and where immigration now formed the political “dividing line” in UK politics. Smith answered by pointing to increased inequality and unemployment.

Smith said: “When you’re living in basically decent housing, when you hurt yourself you know you can go to hospital and be treated just like the rich kid down the road – then the differences [with others] become interesting, sometimes annoying, but not existential.”

Smith continued: “Now, they’re existential. When you can’t get a job, when there’s no housing, when your schools are falling apart, when the hospitals are falling apart – now it feels existential.”

For Smith, a lack of jobs and services, rather than diversity itself, made cultural difference feel existential.

What does White Teeth reveal about place?

Smith’s debut novel, primarily set during the last three decades of the 20th century, follows three families: the Joneses, the Iqbals and the Chalfens. Smith said the novel was set in Kilburn and Willesden in north-west London, where she grew up.

She praised her state education, which she said had stood her “in incredibly good stead” throughout her life. “I can talk to anyone. The posh kids up the hill? Not so much,” she said.

Looking at her neighbourhood now, she said: “Now, when you look at my neighbourhood, the same schools, the same situations – everything is harder, everybody is poorer, everybody is struggling more.” Smith said that this made it “very, very natural to look to your left and think ‘who the fuck are you?’” She called it “an economic and structural question.”

Her local comparison places the cause in economic and structural conditions, not personal hostility alone.

What should audiences recover from the left?

Smith encouraged audiences to develop “a nostalgia for the left,” while distinguishing the 1980s politics she criticized from the public services she considered worth retaining. Her distinction was blunt: “you don’t want the LGBTQ+ politics of the 80s, you don’t want the racial prejudice” depicted in White Teeth, “do you want the healthcare and the schools and the education? I think you do.”

She continued: “So it’s about looking back and seeing what was of value – and what was [of] value to me was a social democracy that basically functioned, and might function again if people cared about it, wanted it, believed it could happen again.”

For Smith, healthcare, schools and education provide the material basis for renewed belief in social democracy.

How did Smith finish White Teeth?

Smith began writing White Teeth at 21 and completed the acclaimed novel at 24, after a romantic breakup and a return to living with her mother. She recalled: “Everybody else was out clubbing, I was like, ‘I’m fucking stuck in this room, finishing a novel,’” while Valentine’s Day approached and her friends urged her out.

Smith described the pressure from her friends: “all my girlfriends were like ‘we gotta go out, go on the pull’.” She finished the manuscript on 14 February, then “literally ran straight out to the club.” She called the novel’s ending “a chaos” and joked that this was “why young people shouldn’t write novels.”

The account makes the 14 February finish and the novel’s “chaos” part of its origin story.

What has Smith published since White Teeth?

Since White Teeth, Smith has written five novels, short stories and nonfiction; her most recent published book, Dead and Alive, is an essay collection.

The five further novels are:

• The Autograph Man
• On Beauty
• NW
• Swing Time
• The Fraud

Her post-White Teeth output now spans five novels, short stories, nonfiction and essays.

Why does literary criticism matter?

Lipa said that “learning to live with reviews – bad reviews, good reviews” was “one of the hardest things for me to learn to deal with.” Smith called literary criticism “absolutely essential” because it “helps develop taste.”

Smith added: “I’m very interested in criticism. Even if it’s a bad review of me, if it’s well written, if it’s intelligent … I quite love ‘takedowns’.” Her position treats a well-argued negative review as a test of judgment rather than an attack to avoid.

What remains at the festival?

The Southbank Centre’s London literature festival runs until 1 November, with a speaker programme selected by Lipa that includes Patti Smith, Malorie Blackman and Hisham Matar. Lipa also runs the Service95 book club, through which she interviews authors on a monthly basis.

Smith’s practical test for the debate ahead is clear: functioning healthcare, schools and education, with people caring about, wanting and believing in social democracy again.