Zadie Smith will read from her new novel The Fraud, followed by an on-stage conversation with Ragini Tharoor Srinivasan. The evening will conclude with a book sale and signing. The event is presented as part of the 2023/2024 Inprint Margarett Root Brown Reading Series. ASL interpretation will be available at this event.

ZADIE SMITH rose to literary stardom more than two decades ago when her first novel White Teeth became an instant bestseller. Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times called it “the debut of a preternaturally gifted new writer – a writer who at the age of 24 demonstrates both an instinctive storytelling talent and a fully fashioned voice that’s street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time.” She has since gained international acclaim and published four novels, including The Autograph Man, Booker Prize finalist On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time. According to Vogue, “Swing Time boldly reimagines the classically English preoccupation with class and status … in which race, gender, and the strange distortions of contemporary celebrity meet on a global stage.” Smith is also the author of the essay collections Changing My Mind, Feel Free, and Intimations, the short story collection Grand Union, and the novella The Embassy of Cambodia. Her honors include the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award, and the Orange Prize for Fiction. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has been listed twice as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists.

Smith joins us to share her first work of historical fiction, The Fraud, which follows the hypocrisy and deception of the high-profile Tichborne Trials that divided Victorian England. Kirkus calls the book “intelligent and thoughtful,” and Lit Hub declared: “The day a new Zadie Smith book comes out should be a national holiday.” She is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books and a professor of creative writing at New York University.