Zadie Smith, Swing Time

Beatriz Perez Zapata (University of the Balearic Islands)

Ed. by Jenni Ramone, The Nottingham Trent University
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.09: English Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary Britain , 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Gina Lyle (University of Glasgow), Graham MacPhee (University of Manchester), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Jenni Ramone (The Nottingham Trent University)

Dates

First circulation or publication Nov 2016

Places

United Kingdom (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Swing Time

(2016) arrived surrounded by the halo of music, dance, and stardom, and it delivered a new form of narrating some of Zadie Smith’s most pressing concerns. The title of the novel refers to the eponymous musical (Stevens 1936) and, as Jeffrey Eugenides (2016) points out, it is also a hint to Smith’s preoccupation with time, which she had also explored in her previous novel,

(2012). Equally present are the topics of female friendship, the relationship with one’s past, and the pervasiveness and insidiousness of colonialism. Even though the novel covers familiar ground,

Swing Time

came with a twist: it was the first time Smith wrote in the first person. In the interviews following the publication of the novel, she expressed some reservations about writing in the first…

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2615 words

Citation: Perez Zapata, Beatriz. "Swing Time". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 April 2019 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35797, accessed 19 April 2024.]

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