Swing Time: LONGLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017

Smith, Zadie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141036605 ISBN 13: 9780141036601

Publisher: Penguin, 2017

LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017

'Smith's finest. Extraordinary, truly marvellous' Observer

'Superb' Financial Times 'Breathtaking' TLS 'Pitch-perfect' Daily Telegraph

'There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith' Telegraph

SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017

A dazzlingly exuberant novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the critically acclaimed author of White Teeth, On Beauty and Grand Union

Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. It's a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either.

Bursting with energy, rhythm and movement, Swing Time is Zadie Smith's most ambitious novel yet. It is a story about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it . . .

Review:

Satisfying and thoughtful (Daily Telegraph)

Publisher's description. Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is Zadie Smith's most ambitious novel yet: a story about friendship and music and true identity, how they shape us and how we can survive them. Moving from north-west London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time. (Penguin)

Endlessly satisfying... [Zadie Smith] has never written better. Pitch-perfect, masterful and sophisticated (Telegraph)

Zadie Smith is the best writer of our generation, and Swing Time is her best book to date. As the title promises, the novel swings and pulsates with life, filled with emotion, excited by intellect and haunted by sadness. What a miracle that literature can still do things other forms of art cannot. What a miracle that Zadie Smith is among us, writing. (Gary Shteyngart)

Clever, funny, confident and kind. Her gift for language is a pleasure and her character shines through (Evening Standard)

[Smith] packs more intelligence, humour and sheer energy into any given scene than anyone else of her generation (Sunday Telegraph)

Zadie Smith's finest novel. Extraordinary, virtuosic... [It] does what only literature can and what only great literature will: forces us to assess the very vocabulary with which we speak of human experience (Observer)

Zadie Smith at her finest... [An] unflinching portrait of friendship... [A] triumph (Guardian)

Ingenious, inspired... Zadie Smith's new novel is very good indeed (Sunday Times)

Shrewd observation and sly satire, profundity and genuine purpose, as well as some of the most heart-stoppingly lyrical writing of her career (Scotland on Sunday)

From the Back Cover:

'Superb. One of the most entertaining novels you'll read this year' The Times Literary Supplement

How do we become who we are?
Can we ever truly escape our origins?
Must we dance to the music of our time?

Set in London, New York and West Africa, Swing Time is about two brown girls from Willesden who dream of being dancers. Only one - Tracey - has the talent. But the other has ideas which take her further than she could ever have imagined. It is a story of finding happiness in the meanest of places and feeling sad when all around you are happy. It's about the choices we make and the choices made for us. Above all, it's a tale of the friendships that anchor us, define us, and change us forever.

'Smith's finest [novel]. Truly marvellous, so extraordinary. Has brilliant things to say about race, class and gender' Observer

'A thrilling, multilayered tour-de-force' Los Angeles Times

'Smith has never written better. Her dialogue is pitch-perfect, her comic timing masterful' Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year

'Dazzling' Irish Independent

'A true, beautifully executed tragicomedy. Some of the most heart-stoppingly lyrical writing of Smith's career' Scotland on Sunday