Zadie Smith Dua Lipa interview: inequality has made culture clashes feel 'existential'
In a Zadie Smith Dua Lipa interview at the Southbank Centre's London literature festival, the novelist said growing inequality and unemployment have made cultural differences feel existential, linking Britain's divisions to the demise of its historic welfare system.
Zadie Smith Dua Lipa interview: inequality has made culture clashes feel 'existential'
Zadie Smith told Dua Lipa in a festival interview that inequality has made culture clashes feel "existential", arguing that the demise of Britain's "incredible, historic" welfare system has led to greater divisions. The conversation formed part of the Southbank Centre's London literature festival.
A conversation at the London literature festival
Lipa, who interviews authors monthly through her book club Service95, asked Smith how attitudes towards multiculturalism have changed since the 80s and 90s, and about the current "dividing line" on immigration in UK politics.
Why differences now feel existential
Smith pointed to increased inequality and unemployment as causes of division. When housing, healthcare and jobs are secure, she said, differences with others become "interesting, sometimes annoying, but not existential".
"Now, they're existential. When you can't get a job, when there's no housing"
Joblessness, lack of housing, and failing schools and hospitals have changed the picture, she said. In her view, division is "an economic and structural question". She also encouraged developing "a nostalgia for the left", saying she did not want the LGBTQ+ politics of the 80s or the racial prejudice of that era, but did want its healthcare, schools and education. What she valued, she said, was "a social democracy that basically functioned, and might function again if people cared about it".
The state education Smith credits
Smith praised her state education, saying it has stood her "in incredibly good stead". "I can talk to anyone. The posh kids up the hill? Not so much," she said. Her neighbourhood, she added, is now harder for everyone: "everything is harder, everybody is poorer, everybody is struggling more".
White Teeth, a quarter-century on
Smith's debut novel White Teeth was published in 2000 and is primarily set in the last three decades of the 20th century. It traces three families - the Joneses, the Iqbals and the Chalfens - in Kilburn and Willesden in north-west London, where Smith grew up.
She began the novel at 21 and it was published when she was 24, finishing it in the aftermath of a break-up, when she moved back in with her mum. She ended up finishing it on 14 February and then "literally ran straight out to the club". The ending, she said, is "a chaos" - "this is why young people shouldn't write novels".
On criticism and the rest of the festival
Lipa told Smith that "learning to live with reviews – bad reviews, good reviews" was "one of the hardest things for me to learn to deal with". Smith called literary criticism "absolutely essential" because it "helps develop taste", adding: "I'm very interested in criticism … I quite love 'takedowns'".
The London literature festival runs until 1 November, with speakers selected by Lipa including Patti Smith, Malorie Blackman and Hisham Matar.
