Zadie Smith
Joan Didion deserves better
The great American writer is ill-served by this new biography – but luckily we still have her own writing to tell us who she truly was
Marks out of ten
Like a weary schoolmaster toiling over his pupils’ homework, Peter Kemp dispenses praise, encouragement or reproof to modern fiction’s big-hitters
The best British short stories — from Daniel Defoe to Zadie Smith
In this handsome two-volume anthology, Philip Hensher convincingly establishes himself as a world authority on the short story, says Ian Sansom
Symbolism and a man called U: more avant-garde fiction from Tom McCarthy
In a 2008 essay Zadie Smith held up Tom McCarthy’s austere debut Remainder as a bold exemplar of avant-garde fiction,…
