Meet the Writer: Zadie Smith

A long-awaited guest on Bozar’s literary stage. Zadie Smith will be in conversation with Annelies Beck about literature, art and the imagination. The occasion is her essay collection Dead and Alive, a book that reflects with exceptional clarity on the significance of fiction, observation, and critical thinking in an age of social acceleration. For over twenty years, Zadie Smith has been hailed as one of the most important voices in contemporary English-language literature. She made her international debut with the celebrated novel White Teeth and subsequently published, among other works, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time. Her intellectually precise and deeply engaged essays explore themes such as identity, language, migration, art, and the role of fiction in a changing world. This evening will focus not only on Smith’s literary work, but also on her incisive and generous perspective on art. Drawing on essays such as her defence of fiction and her reflections on artists, including Celia Paul, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Kara Walker, we will explore how images and language can enrich one another. An encounter between seeing, reading, and thinking with one of the most original writers of our time.