The Event: Zadie Smith: Dead and Alive, in conversation with Benjamin Law
Location: Melbourne Town Hall
Produced by The Wheeler Centre
Zadie Smith's first novel, White Teeth was first published 25 years ago. Argh.
Part if me can measure my life by Zadie Smith and her writing.
I remember reading it on a beach in Greece around the time wondering what the fuss was all about. Smith, born to one Jamaican parent and one white parent, the first person from her North London family to go to a university, and that university being Cambridge, she's inciteful, funny, deep thinking, up-to-date and culturally aware. She's great. I remember reading White Teeth and recognising a lot of the areas - having lived around NW3 and NW6 while I was there. She was relatable.
My other memory of Zadie Smith involves Andrew O'Hagan, a Scottish writer cut from a similar cloth. I was doing some driving for the Writer's Festival and we were stuck in traffic. He was texting somebody while we were chatting. The next thing he tells me is, "I'm having a chat with Zadie Smith. Told her I'm stuck in traffic with a woman called Panda who is also a writer who's driving me about."
That's my six degrees of separation story with her.
Tonight, she was in conversation with Benjamin Law at the Melbourne Town Hall. The stalls were sold out, the gods were half full. For an hour and a half, I got to be blown away by two people having a deep, fun, exploring conversation about writing, life, the joys of change, process and the extraordinary luck she's had (which you can clearly see has been set of with an extreme amount of hard work).
Both Smith, and by extension, Benjamin Law are very generous in their conversation. I get the feeling Law was a little star struck, just as Smith is down to earth.
Part of this talk was looked at her writing process, the ever-encroaching role of AI, what it was like growing up as a literary darling... the chat was as fascinating as it was fun.
A large span of the chat was spent talking about her new book of essays, Dead and Alive. Part of Smith's greatness is her ability to write fantastic non-fiction alongside of her fiction. And I agree with her, the great thing about writing essays is that you can finish them easily.
And then it was back onto the tram and home to the cat.
I do have one question, though. In the audience of around 2000 people, about 85% of the crowd were woman. I wouldn't call Zadie Smith a woman's writer. She's a literary writer. She doesn't write romance or chick lit. Nor does she write commercial crime novels. I was just a little floored at the lack of men in the crowd. Don't they read any more? Where are the men and why aren't they showing up to listen to ideas and engage in discourse about the world. Is this why there's a male loneliness crisis? Just an observation.
I've downloaded her book of essays onto my kindle. Looking forward to that.
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