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WPF Reading Guide on Beauty Zadie Smith

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WPF Reading Guide on Beauty Zadie Smith 25 2006 WINNER ON BEAUTY BY ZADIE SMITH AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY The Belsey family has always defined itself as Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, liberal and atheist, and Howard in particular is The Autograph Man, On Beauty, N-W and Swing Time, furious when his son Jerome, lately a born-again as well as a novella The Embassy of Cambodia, and a Christian, goes to work as an intern with the ultra- collection of essays Changing My Mind, and editor of conservative Christian Kipps family over his summer The Book of Other People. Zadie was holidays. After a failed affair with elected a fellow of the Royal Society Victoria Kipps, Jerome returns of Literature in 2002, and was listed home. However, the families are as one of Granta’s 20 Best Young again brought closer nine months British Novelists in 2003 and again later when the Kippses move to in 2013. White Teeth won multiple Wellington, and Monty begins awards including the James Tait Black work at the university. Memorial Prize, the Whitbread First Carlene and Kiki become friends Novel Award and the Guardian First despite the tensions between their Book Award. On Beauty won the families. The rivalry between Monty Orange Prize for Fiction and was and Howard increases as Monty shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and N-W was shortlisted for the challenges the liberal attitudes of Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction. the university on issues such as Zadie Smith is currently a tenured affirmative action. His academic professor of fiction at New York success also highlights Howard’s University and a Member of the inadequacies and failure to publish American Academy of Arts and Letters. a long-awaited book. Meanwhile, the Belsey family is facing problems of its own as they deal with the PLOT SUMMARY fallout of Howard’s affair with his colleague and family friend Claire. On Beauty centres on the story of two families and their different yet increasingly intertwined lives. The Zora and Levi become friends with Carl, an African- Belsey family consists of university professor Howard, American man of a poorer background than their a white Englishman; his African-American wife Kiki; own middle-class standing. Zora uses him as a and their children, Jerome, Zora and Levi. They live poster-child for her campaign to allow talented in the fictional university town of Wellington, outside non-students to attend university classes. For Levi, Boston. Howard’s professional nemesis is Monty Carl is a source of identity, as a member of a more Kipps, a Trinidadian living in Britain with his wife ‘authentic’ black culture than Levi considers his own Carlene and children Victoria and Michael. background to be. www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk © Women’s Prize for Fiction The Women’s Prize Trust is a registered charity (charity number 1181253) ON BEAUTY BY ZADIE SMITH WHAT TO LOOK OUT FOR DISCUSSION POINTS Women’s bodies are a prevalent theme in On Beauty: Love is an underlying theme of On Beauty. Why do Kiki’s large bosom and strong body are described you think Kiki and Howard love each other? Does positively, yet she herself is aware that other Kiki still love Howard? What does marriage and people fetishise and sexualise her body; sometimes, children do to love in the different families – the she provokes the discussion, but she is also often Kipps and the Belseys? Has Carlene had to surrender uncomfortable with it. Kiki and Claire Malcolm herself for the sake of her marriage, and has Kiki provide comparisons to each other’s physicality – done the same? Can love survive marriage? Claire’s poem about an orgasm, for instance, is abstract and QUESTIONS intellectual, which fits her What do you think of Howard in ethereal, spare and muscular this novel? body. On page 96, Carlene Kipps Is Claire right to ask Zora to draws a definite distinction speak for Carl at the university between men as intellectuals meeting? and women as physical, practical beings: “Everything I do, I do Are rappers the present day with my body . Monty hardly poets of America? knows he has a body at all.” How do Claire and Carl’s ideas Smith also represents of poetry differ and how are interweaving experiences of they similar? race and class. The Belseys are a mixed race family whose father, NEXT STEPS Howard, a white academic, wants Write about a piece of music of to pretend that race doesn’t exist your choice that represents a at all. The Belseys are an personal journey of some kind, educated, upper middle-class, inspired by Kiki Belsey’s time at left-wing family, yet Howard’s the concert. Is there a piece of attitude to Carl, a working class, young black man, music that represents a particular time or memory is far from welcoming, and Levi Belsey, the youngest for you, or suggests some kind of life event? son, longs for a more ‘street’ experience instead As a bigger project, write a family history of your of life in a middle-class suburb. Carl’s presence in family, starting perhaps with parents or near relatives Claire Malcolm’s poetry class later becomes divisive and working backwards. What were their views, within an increasingly conservative university their politics, where did they live, what did they do? environment. The Belseys contrast with the Kipps, a similarly affluent British black family whose politics and religion place them firmly in right-wing territory, THIS BOOK COMBINES EXTRAORDINARY CHARACTERISATION yet whose company Jerome Belsey values. WITH SKILFUL AND SEEMINGLY EFFORTLESS PLOTTING MARTHA KEARNEY, CHAIR OF JUDGES 2006 BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS N-W BY ZADIE SMITH GIRL, WOMAN, OTHER BY BERNARDINE EVARISTO AMERICANAH BY CHIMAMANDA NGOZI ADICHIE www.womensprizeforfiction.co.uk © Women’s Prize for Fiction The Women’s Prize Trust is a registered charity (charity number 1181253).
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