Zadie Smith Interview: Such Painful Knowledge
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- Опубліковано 25 чер 2018
- Since she made her astonishing literary debut with ‘White Teeth’ in 2000, Zadie Smith has continued writing bestselling novels, making her one of the most prominent figures on the British literary scene. In this extensive, absorbing interview, Smith talks about her 2016-novel ‘Swing Time’, her Jamaican heritage and writing: “It’s almost like acting. What would it be like if I were a dancer instead of a writer? … What if? ... It’s a kind of fantasy life.”
“Some struggles, even when they’re righteous, are personally deforming.” Born to an English father and a Jamaican mother, Smith grew up in North London in a family with little money, who had other worries than those of the typical white middle-class: “When your main concern is survival in your mind - whether warranted or not - everything else is a luxury.” She was acutely aware of being in a position, where it was easy to fall out of the system and responded by being “very, very good. But I think if you are very good, there’s a little bit of self-hatred which comes with it, because you think: Why do I have to be twice as good as everybody else? Why am I doing this, who am I doing it for?” It wasn’t until the age of 12 that Smith realized that Jamaicans were descendants of the slave trade, and she was astounded, as she had always thought that they were native to Jamaica. Now, a mother herself, she has come to realize how hard it is to explain such painful knowledge as mass atrocity to a child, even if you’re eager for them to understand: “There’s never a good time to tell your child about slavery, or the Holocaust.”
In the novel ‘Swing Time’ two girls of mixed race meet in a community dance class in London, in the early 1980s, and are instantly attracted to each other, because of an “inherent tribal instinct” that Smith believes all children have: “They are attracted to each other because they are similar.” The story, Smith explains, also captures how women take a strong interest in each other, even projecting each other: “It’s a kind of compulsion, but it’s very narrative at its root, which is part of the reason I think the history of the novel is so entwined with women. Some of its earliest practitioners - and its greatest practitioners - are women.”
Zadie Smith (b. 1975) is a British novelist, essayist and short story writer. She is the author of the critically praised novels ‘White Teeth’ (2000), ‘The Autograph Man’ (2002), ‘On Beauty’ (2005), ‘NW’ (2012) and ‘Swing Time’ (2016). Smith is the recipient of prestigious awards such as the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award for ‘White Teeth’, ‘Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists’ (2003 and 2013), ‘Welt-Literaturpreis’ (2016) and the ‘Langston Hughes Medal’ (2017). She lives in New York City.
Zadie Smith was interviewed by Synne Rifbjerg in August 2017 at the Louisiana Literature festival in Denmark.
Camera: Rasmus Quistgaard & Anders Lindved Edited by: Klaus Elmer Produced by: Marc-Christoph Wagner Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2018
Supported by Nordea-fonden
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I could listen to her talk forever
I wish ALL her talks were recorded and uploaded onto UA-cam ;_;
Jack Lu yesssss
me too.
Me too! Literally forever.
Poor idiot
i love the way she construct thoughts with words. her words carried the thoughts well;not heavy not too light but provocative and arresting.
Exactly !
I just admire how Zadie answer questions so calmly clever
She is sugar c0ating this rap!
She is just splendid to listen to.
One of the most entertaining and enlightening 40 minutes I have ever spent on the internet.
Just finding Zadie, She is absolutely bewitching and speaks beautifully. She so easily pulls you in and I haven't even had the pleasure of reading her material, which I plan on changing soon. Thank you Louisiana Channel, you continue to delight my mind, eyes, and ears!
Swing Time is a favourite book of mine ashamed to say it’s my 1st Zadie. I’m a Maori NZ’er who grew up in Sydney Australia & Zadie writes the cadences of her characters voices brilliantly. As a woman of similar age with writer ambitions Zadie is very inspiring to me. Her ability to entertain while simultaneously providing searing social commentary is masterful. I felt a special bond with this book in particular because of its partial setting in areas of North London where I spent a bit of time roaming in 2016. I really enjoyed this interview because - & I’m still kicking myself - I missed her recent talk at the Sydney Opera House ☹️ I’m looking forward to the next work 💜
You should write her w a specific well thought out question?
I was wondering how I had missed this talk before and now I see it was just posted! Cool discussion - she's a great interview
Its a very intense conversation about being alive in different conditions and from different perspectives of knowledge
I completely understand the imagining of a grander background that she talks about around 30:00. When I was entering my early teens, my father, who is a British immigrant, became obsessed with uncovering our family tree and our heritage and found that we've mostly been what is essentially "peasants" for over 1,000 years. When your ancestors have been poor and have no real religious or cultural tradition and then you are also even isolated from them as an immigrant, it is hard not to sometimes wish for "something else", even if it's entirely sentimental. I think it's a sentiment found in a lot of the kind of "forgotten" working-class in many cultures; there is no real record there, so one is created.
I see zadie, I click
5:13-5:17 Do others have to lose so that we can win? Is this the mindset that we've been living in?
That's some deep shit...No really,that's some deep shit....I know that you easily could go nuts chasing that down...Sisyphus with ankle weights crawling out of steaming big city people shit.
pretty sure the 'other persons book' is conversations with friends by sally rooney (at roughly 38 mins)
good catch!
I liked the part about improving on nature.
People still like to read about a nicely described house or a hamlet near a highway or a railway track in spite of Internet images so widely available. a writer sould save words and patience from her interviews.
Zadie i s fantastic . Regards compmaturism
The interviewer's outfit is AMAZING
she is stunning.
when was this taped
gotta love crouching flip flop man
13:28 whoa...
Late to this, but it seems like the host is explaining Smith's book to her at times? I get it's conversation and introducing ideas the crowd may not know about, but I can't help but feel it could be introduced in a way that doesn't seem like she's explaining the concepts that Smith wrote herself to her?
Yep, no awkward silence a-la Anglosaxon cultures (across the board) when you are surrounded by Italians, that's what we do bitches 😁 And not only when we are in Italy - I lived in London for a while and I've been based in Los Angeles for several years now. It's always like that, for the better or worse!
Regards JJ Pokrak ( compmaturism )
Beautiful how Zadie doesn’t see new forms of tech/expression as an opportunity and not a threat.. shows the progressive nature of a artist mind
can anyone else see how her eyes are unnervingly similar to Deliciously Ella's eyes????
Books are not being written very much lately. Nowadays many writers have become corporate employees as the communist manifesto explains would eventually happen and so as a result many writers produce content for the corporate publishers to perform merchantism with.
any snacks?, redistribution on spread the wealth, construct social institutions,.
she looks like Ella Mills (deliciously ella)
check it out: ua-cam.com/video/XjjD3K0yC5o/v-deo.html
The problem - should say, my challenge is why she dims her intelligence in her books. She interviews at a far more sophisticated level than she writes.
Accessibility
Read her essay collections: Feel Free and Changing my mind
ZS looks in pain.
From ZS's Wikipedia: "Tell the truth through whichever veil comes to hand - but tell it. Resign yourself to the lifelong sadness that comes from never being satisfied."
Sounds like she has a cold.
are you listening to the nature of the shit that goes through her mind at any given time? being that critically introspective and curious is a painfully enlightening endeavor.
To make EVERYTHING a struggle for yourself must be a chore. Even to speak about the "battles" she believes are being fought in modernity are nothing but useless virtues, inertia and timidity.
is it useless?
never any gratitude...
For what....??
She touches her nose a lot. Disgusting 🥺
Hope that’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen 🙄
allergies exist omg
Although I would argue that dying on the streets isn't particularly natural. In a forest or on the plains maybe...
You are missing the larger point. That does happen, with or without government/societal intervention. It was not about being optimal or even good, it just is. One would think that that should be implicit.