White Teeth
by Zadie Smith
read: circa 2004
Time 100 Novels, Guardian 1000 Novels, James Tait Black Memorial Prize
White Teeth is an example of a modern "identity plot" novel. The characters are all from different ethnic and religious backgrounds and upbringings - white British, Jamaican Jehovah's Witness, Bangladeshi Islam, Jewish, and mixed race and religion - and they all seem to be trying to figure out how they fit in to modern English society. It's almost an identity novel for England itself. What is England in this world where being British can mean so many different things?
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