A multicultural world in flux

Alina-Elena Onet

A multicultural world in flux. Geographies of identity with Zadie Smith The present book has set out to explore the complex interplay between identity construction and postcolonial metropolitan geographies in Zadie Smith's novels White Teeth, On Beauty, N-W and Swing Time . The central argument of this work, which we have built in depth in chapters dedicated to each of the chosen titles, is that the identity of contemporary postcolonial subjects is formed at the intersection of several determinants, of which race, gender and class are crucial and recurrent. Smith is a master of fractured and overdetermined identities which are almost always situated in metropolitan spaces that are equally prismatic and multidimensional. Thus, we have sought to highlight the essential thematic continuity of the four novels analyzed by discussing topics, symbols and motifs centered on the fictional representation of identity, space and time intertwined with race, ethnicity, gender, social class, postcolonial trauma, memory etc. The present book is one of the first Romanian attempts at capturing some of the essence of what it means to be human, brown, black, white, female, male, an immigrant, and/or an outcast in Smith's literary universe and we earnestly hope that the present endeavor will be taken as a starting point for other Romanian researchers to dwell more on these and other equally important issues that characterize Zadie Smith's work. - Alina-Elena Onet, Ph.D.