Since its release in 2000, Zadie Smith's White Teeth has become a major milestone in the development of contemporary British fiction. While she has written a number of best-selling and critically acclaimed books since the release of White Teeth, her debut novel remains the work with which she is most closely associated. It is notable for its ambition as a first novel; it is a text that that synthesizes and gives voice to many traditions and experiences. But it also stakes out its place in a self-referential English tradition and tries to wrest critical angles and perspectives out of it.
In addition to its ambitious form and style, the novel is notable for its timeliness, in that it came...
