1
White Teeth, London, Hamish Hamilton, 2000; New
York, Random House, 2002. The Autograph Man,
London, Hamish Hamilton, 2002; New York, Random House,
2002. Both books are here quoted from the paperback
Penguin edition, London, 2001 and 2003, respectively, and
will be abbreviated to their initials in subsequent
references. Smith's novels have been published in Italian
by Mondadori, with the titles of Denti bianchi
(2000) and L'uomo autografo
(2003).
2
While White Teeth has proven an incredibly
successful novel and has collected several literary
prizes - including the 2000 Whitbread First Novel Award,
the Guardian First Book Award and the James Tait
Black Memorial Prize for Fiction -, The Autograph
Man has elicited a much less unanimous critical
response. However, critics generally recognise that, in
spite of the book's faults, Smith has already developed a
narrative voice of her own, and a very seductive one.
See, for example, Covacich (2003: 35).
3
Black British culture emerges from a number of complex
historical and anthropological phenomena which have
shaped Britain as a multi-racial nation. As Donnell
(2002: 11) well summarises, "In a nation state that has
experienced the collapse of Empire, large-scale
immigration from its former colonies, the mass women's
movement, black power and nationalist movements,
institutionalised racism, Thatcherism, multiculturalism,
globalisation, and a supposed 'flood' of refugees and
asylum seekers, questions of identity, politics and
cultural values have undergone enormous, if not radical,
change".
4
Head (2003: 106): "Smith now has an Asian look. And this
demonstrates an indeterminate ethnicity. For a book that
purports to speak authoritatively to a wide range of
ethnic experience - including Caribbean British and Asian
British experience - the ability to adopt different
guises suggests a substantive hybridized identity that
goes beyond the more cynical marketing
objectives".
5
Very useful information of the publishing atmosphere in
which WT saw the light is provided by the reader written
by Claire Squires (2002).