by Zadie Smith
Publisher: Penguin Books
Number of Pages: 464 (paperback)
ISBN-13: 978-0525558965
About the book
Book of the Year 2023 according to New York Times, New Yorker, Guardian, Economist, Observer, The Spectator, Financial Times, Vogue, The Times, Washington Post, Independent, Daily Express.
“A writer at the peak of her powers” – The Telegraph
Truth and fiction. Jamaica and Britain. Who gets to tell their story?
In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet – cousin, housekeeper, and perhaps more – to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth.
From literary London to Jamaica’s sugar-cane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic.
Reviews:
“It’s difficult to give any idea of how extraordinary this book is. One of the great historical novels, certainly. But has any historical novel ever combined such brilliantly researched and detailed history with such intensely imagined fiction?” — Michael Frayn
“As always it is a pleasure to be in Zadie Smith’s mind. Dickens may be dead, but Smith, thankfully, is alive.” — New York Times
“Zadie Smith’s Victorian-set masterpiece holds a mirror up to Britain. The Fraud is the genuine article.” — Independent
“Smith’s dazzling historical novel combines deft writing and strenuous construction in a tale of literary London and the horrors of slavery.” — Guardian
About the author
Zadie Smith is a British novelist, essayist, and professor of creative writing. She is best known for her debut novel White Teeth (2000), which won multiple literary awards, and her subsequent works have solidified her status as one of the most influential contemporary authors. Smith’s writing often addresses themes of race, identity, and multiculturalism.