![]() ![]() ![]() Smith’s exploration of memory – cultural, historical, and personal – is driven by a syntactical pun: ‘the past is always tense, the future perfect’. Divided into four major sections, each of which is double-dated (1974, 1945 1984, 1857 1900, 1907 1992, 1999), White Teeth follows the fates of Archie Jones, Samad Iqbal, and their families, in an unremarkably notable corner of North London at the close of the millennium. Lynn Akura’s arresting design brings together persistent nationalist symbols (Bengali Tiger, English Rose) and the fragility of skin, a dialectic of history and life in which the tattoo is fundamentally complicit. I’m very glad to own the Penguin Ink edition of this, Zadie Smith’s debut novel. ![]()
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