Zadie Smith - NW

Scotsman“NW is a triumph...” At its core though, NW is a novel about emotional, political and ethical choices, and the consequences of those choices. It is about how to be good, and what might divert that noble ambition...

Financial Times“Packed tighter than tuna in a can...” Divided into sections, each told from a different perspective, and in a different literary style. Each is architecturally impressive; the overall effect is of a cacophony of subjectivities...“the narrative equivalent of surround sound”...

The Independent“Her dialogue sings and soars; terse, packed and sassy...” Faithful to its riven and polarised city, NW cussedly refuses to hang together. Read it as a bold embrace of an age of "sudden and total rupture", when every clock keeps its own time, or else as a self-sabotaging flight from coherence...

Guardian“Uncertainty keeps on cracking the pavements...” The trailing plot threads aren't exactly tied off, more tucked back in. The real mystery of NW is that it falls so far short of being a successful novel, though it contains the makings of three or four...

The Telegraph“A joyous, optimistic, angry masterpiece...” The mastery of it lies in its felt life, the clarity and density of its observation of how human beings live; how they talk; how they gesture; how they behave to each other, in public and in private. It is intensely funny in its disillusioned way...

New York Times“Does a disservice to this talented author...” Ms. Smith’s attempts at satire — sending up snooty dinner parties and yuppie child care — are predictable in the extreme, as are her efforts to examine the psychological hold that class and money exert on rich and poor alike...

The Observer“Flawed, fragmentary and undeniably brilliant...” Pretty much every one is brilliantly written. Her sentences are truly, distractingly ace; she has all of the sass of the young Martin Amis, and none of the swagger...