In 2023, the formerly edgy became the new canonical. At least that’s what the LRB thought of Zadie Smith’s last book. But was the darling of the Anglo-American literary establishment even edgy to begin with? Surely her debut White Teeth (2000) was always going to be part of the canon. Not because it’s necessarily her best novel, but because it is a literary monument — to a multicultural Britain shorn of its empire and to the heady days of Blairism when faith was mistakenly placed in this project.
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