A reading list on the weird and wonderful culture of Great Britain.
Zadie Smith
Posted inArts & Culture, Culture, Highlight, Profiles & Interviews, Quotes, Unapologetic Women
Zadie Smith on the Work and Influences of Deana Lawson
Lawson’s photographs capture the divinity and stateliness of its working-class subjects.
Posted inCurrent Events
Zadie Smith Takes on Black Pain With a Light Touch
At Harper’s, Smith doesn’t really feel like she is engaging in her subject matter with much care or heart.
Posted inArts & Culture, Nonfiction, Quotes
Race in America Has Never Been an Either-Or Proposition
Zadie Smith examines the racially-charged work of Jordan Peele’s ‘Get Out’ and Dana Schutz’s ‘Emmett Till’
Posted inEditor's Pick
Getting In and Out: Who Owns Black Pain?
“Their grandmother is as black as the ace of spades, as the British used to say; their mother is what the French still call café au lait. They themselves are sort of yellowy. When exactly does black suffering cease to be their concern?”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes, Video
The Moment When President Obama Realized He Needed Luther
-From Zadie Smith’s New Yorker profile of Comedy Central stars Key and Peele. Keegan-Michael Key reprised his role as Luther for President Obama’s weekend speech at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Read the story
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Climate Change and the Language of Mourning
There is the scientific and ideological language for what is happening to the weather, but there are hardly any intimate words. Is that surprising? People in mourning tend to use euphemism; likewise the guilty and ashamed. The most melancholy of all the euphemisms: “The new normal.” “It’s the new normal,” I think, as a beloved […]
Posted inUncategorized
[Not singe-page] The rap superstar discusses his career and how he’s remained relevant: In the years since his masterpiece ‘Reasonable Doubt,’ the rapper has often been accused of running on empty, too distant now from what once made him real. In ‘Decoded,’ he answers existentially: ‘How distant is the story of your own life ever […]