NW

2014 Longlist

NW is Zadie Smith’s masterful novel about London life.

Zadie Smith’s brilliant tragi-comic NW follows four Londoners – Leah, Natalie, Felix and Nathan – after they’ve left their childhood council estate, grown up and moved on to different lives. From private houses to public parks, at work and at play, their city is brutal, beautiful and complicated.

Yet after a chance encounter they each find that the choices they’ve made, the people they once were and are now, can suddenly, rapidly unravel. A portrait of modern urban life, NW is funny, sad and urgent – as brimming with vitality as the city itself.

(From Publisher)

About the Author

Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. She is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty, and of a collection of essays, Changing My Mind. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People.

Librarians’ Comments

A novel of class, place and identity, where the reader feels they have been deposited in London. The author employs various writing styles and has a certain ear for dialogue. Tragic, grim, depressing and very interesting.

NW stands for North West London, an underprivileged neighbourhood. Zadie Smith lets 4 narrators who grew up there tell their story.

Selected for its high literary merit, as well as being among the more popular fiction titles with a wide range of readers at Halifax Public Libraries.