{"id":656443,"date":"2026-10-25T07:50:22","date_gmt":"2026-10-25T07:50:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/656443\/"},"modified":"2026-10-25T07:50:22","modified_gmt":"2026-10-25T07:50:22","slug":"zadie-smith-tells-dua-lipa-inequality-has-made-culture-clashes-feel-existential-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/656443\/","title":{"rendered":"Zadie Smith tells Dua Lipa inequality has made culture clashes feel \u2018existential\u2019 | Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

The novelist Zadie Smith<\/a> has said that inequality has made culture clashes feel \u201cexistential\u201d, adding that it has become \u201cnatural to look to your left and think \u2018who the fuck are you?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with Dua Lipa<\/a> as part of the Southbank Centre\u2019s London literature festival, Smith argued that the demise of Britain\u2019s \u201cincredible, historic\u201d welfare system has led to greater divisions.<\/p>\n

The pair discussed Smith\u2019s debut novel, White Teeth<\/a>, which was published in 2000 and primarily set in the last three decades of the 20th century.<\/p>\n

Asked by Lipa about how attitudes towards multiculturalism have changed since the 80s and 90s, and the current \u201cdividing line\u201d on immigration in UK politics, Smith pointed to increased inequality and unemployment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re 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 \u2013 then the differences [with others] become interesting, sometimes annoying, but not existential,\u201d said the novelist.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, they\u2019re existential. When you can\u2019t get a job, when there\u2019s no housing, when your schools are falling apart, when the hospitals are falling apart \u2013 now it feels existential.\u201d<\/p>\n

White Teeth traces the stories of three families \u2013 the Joneses, the Iqbals and the Chalfens \u2013 and is set in Kilburn and Willesden in north-west London, where Smith grew up. The writer praised her state education, saying it has stood her \u201cin incredibly good stead\u201d throughout her life. \u201cI can talk to anyone. The posh kids up the hill? Not so much.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, when you look at my neighbourhood, the same schools, the same situations \u2013 everything is harder, everybody is poorer, everybody is struggling more,\u201d she continued. \u201cIt becomes very, very natural to look to your left and think \u2018who the fuck are you?\u2019 That is an economic and structural question.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith encouraged developing \u201ca nostalgia for the left\u201d. While \u201cyou don\u2019t want the LGBTQ+ politics of the 80s, you don\u2019t want the racial prejudice\u201d depicted in White Teeth, \u201cdo you want the healthcare and the schools and the education? I think you do. So it\u2019s about looking back and seeing what was of value \u2013 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the writing process for White Teeth \u2013 which she began when she was 21 and was published when she was 24 \u2013 Smith said that she finished the acclaimed novel in the aftermath of being broken up with and moving back in with her mum.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody else was out clubbing, I was like, \u2018I\u2019m fucking stuck in this room, finishing a novel,\u2019\u201d she said. But Valentine\u2019s Day was approaching, and \u201call my girlfriends were like \u2018we gotta go out, go on the pull\u2019.\u201d She ended up finishing it on 14 February and then \u201cliterally ran straight out to the club\u201d \u2013 so the ending of the novel is \u201ca chaos\u201d, she said, adding that this is \u201cwhy young people shouldn\u2019t write novels\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Since White Teeth, Smith has written five novels \u2013 The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time and The Fraud \u2013 along with short stories and nonfiction. Her most recent book was the essay collection Dead and Alive.<\/p>\n

Lipa and Smith also discussed facing criticism for their works, with Lipa saying that \u201clearning to live with reviews \u2013 bad reviews, good reviews\u201d was \u201cone of the hardest things for me to learn to deal with\u201d. Smith said that literary criticism is \u201cabsolutely essential\u201d because it \u201chelps develop taste\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very interested in criticism,\u201d added Smith. \u201cEven if it\u2019s a bad review of me, if it\u2019s well written, if it\u2019s intelligent \u2026 I quite love \u2018takedowns\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

London literature festival runs until 1 November, with speakers selected by Lipa including Patti Smith, Malorie Blackman and Hisham Matar. Lipa runs a book club, Service95, through which she interviews authors on a monthly basis.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The novelist Zadie Smith has said that inequality has made culture clashes feel \u201cexistential\u201d, adding that it has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":["post-656443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=656443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/656443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=656443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=656443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=656443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}