Zadie Smith, The Embassy of Cambodia

Veronika Schuchter (The Nottingham Trent University)

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 Feb 2013

Places

United Kingdom (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novella

Resources

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Zadie Smith’s narrative was first published as a story in a 2013 digital issue of

The New Yorker

and can still be accessed on the magazine’s website free of charge, before it was picked up by Hamish Hamilton and released as small hardcover book that same year. It follows the protagonist Fatou, a young woman from Ivory Coast, who works under slave-like conditions for an abusive family in North London. As the story unfolds, the reader learns that she most likely resides in the United Kingdom illegally, after having braved a difficult journey through Libya and Italy before reaching London, which limits her prospects in Europe significantly. Smith’s timely piece on the hardships of (forced) migration focuses on the life-story of a single character in an almost

bildungsromanesque

…

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1183 words

Citation: Schuchter, Veronika. "The Embassy of Cambodia". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 June 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35875, accessed 18 April 2024.]

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