Their Eyes Were Watching God - VMC (Paperback)

Zadie Smith was born in North London in 1975 to an English father and a Jamaican mother. She read English at Cambridge, graduating in 1997. Her acclaimed first novel, White Teeth (2000), is a vibrant portrait of contemporary multicultural London, told through the story of three ethnically diverse families. The book won a number of awards and prizes and was adapted for Channel 4.

Frequently touted as the 'voice of a generation', Zadie has continued to explore contemporary British society, via both her novels and essays.

In November 2013 we chose Zadie's novella, The Embassy of Cambodia, as our book of the month. As one of our booksellers explains, "It would be hard enough to condense the mood of contemporary Britain (everything from a long hot summer and Wimbledon glory to fears about escalating gas prices, economic privation, isolation, immigration and a coming hard winter) into a 700 page novel. It is quite another feat to exemplify it in less than 100. Put simply, this is a book of our time; it speaks powerfully and succinctly about modern life and makes you look at the world around you, at the people around you, in a new light."

Book and writing awards

Best Book and Best Female Newcomer at the BT Emma Awards (2000), Guardian First Book Award (2000), Whitbread Prize for a first novel (2000), James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction (2000), WH Smith Book Award for New Talent (2000), Commonwealth Writers First Book Award and Overall Commonwealth Writers Prize (2000) (White Teeth); The Orange Prize for Fiction (2006) (On Beauty).

Similar authors to Zadie Smith

Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Andrea Levy.