Books. This star of British and Jamaican origin has become known through novels often located in the multicultural London where she was born.
Very tall, very beautiful, very elegant, politeness a bit icy. Zadie Smith is completely focused on her remarks. And the novelist with the irremovable turban has something to say, in her assertive and somewhat hoarse voice.
On tour in France, and visiting Rennes, this star
Letters of British origin came to present Swing Time , his latest book. A novel that raises multiple themes, revolving around miscegenation, identity, celebrity, on which this brilliant intellectual, who also writes essays, has thought a lot.
"Jealousy is a strong link"
Swing Time takes place in London, this multicultural London where she was born forty-two years ago. She still has a house there, although she now lives in New York where she teaches creative writing , the art of writing, at New York University. Her heroines, two Métis girls who meet during a dance class, look like her, with their skin "cut in the same light brown fabric" and their freckles. Zadie Smith was born to a Jamaican mother and an English father, as the narrator.
Comparisons stop there. None of the characters knows the enviable trajectory she's been doing since her dazzling entry into literature in 2000, with Sourires de loup . The narrator of Swing Time deprives herself of all life by becoming the personal assistant of a popstar who, with her global successes and humanitarian projects in Africa, strongly resembles Madonna. "A star at the height of Madonna", half confirms Zadie Smith. The second heroine, Tracey, gifted for the dance, begins a rise leaded by psychological problems inherited from a chaotic childhood.
Both live a childlike friendship made of hardened steel that will be tested by time, disillusions. Zadie Smith wanted to survey the field of female friendships. "It's interesting that women take themselves as models, antimodeles. Even jealousy is a strong bond and a sign of life. "
According to her, female friendships are stronger than male friendships. She wants as proof the example of her children. "When my daughter leaves her friends after a party, she asks me where they are going, if they will eat after, etc. She is in empathy. My boy, he says Ciao to his friends and he does not think about it anymore! Interest in the lives of others should not be viewed negatively. "
But the big subject of Zadie Smith, the one who runs through all his books, even if they are quite eclectic, is identity. She was already addressing this theme in Sourires de loup , which questioned the loss of identity of immigrant families. Or in Those of the North West , which focuses on the lives of people living in a cosmopolitan area of London, and one of whose heroines changes its name to escape the fate of his family.
If Zadie Smith is so interested in identity issues, it may be because being Métis, she is forced to post hers permanently. "To be Métis is to have an identity. You are the visual expression of all these chances that it took to arrive at your birth. And this generates a whole series of questions that we do not ask others. " Where are you from ? And your parents, how did they meet? Existential questions that you ask yourself, suddenly. So when you write, you are obliged to register in this identity. And having an identity is exhausting! "
When she returns to England, she often chats with young blacks about to enter university. "They're asking a lot of questions like," If I go to college, will not I become less black and whiter? " Will not my black identity be hurt? Black people do not stop wondering am I black, too black, the right color of black? A white man will never wonder if he is too white. "
"I'm treated as white"
She wants to prove her husband, the Irish poet Nick Laird, met while they were at the university. "He's white, and he never felt an identity as white. Still, things could change. "He told me," For some time now, everyone has been treating me as white. I replied, "Welcome to my world! »»
Identity issues also question her legitimacy as a writer. It is indeed the first time that she authorizes herself, in a novel, to speak by the voice of a woman. "It took me almost twenty-five years to get there. A young woman has no natural authority unless she has been traumatized. We must get the reader to take an interest in the character, to believe in his identity. It takes time to train the reader to believe who you are. It takes time to get a 50-year-old man to recognize a young black woman ... "
Swing Time , Gallimard, 469 pages, 23,50 €.