Dead and Alive: Essays (Signed Book)
A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays

In the past two decades, few writers have been able to master the craft and art of the essay in the way that Zadie Smith has. Her discerning eye and singularly intimate perspective emblazon Smith as a preeminent critic of our generation, society, and culture. In her inimitable honesty and poignant voice, Smith studies the fault lines that divide us and consistently finds within them grounds for solidarity and compassion.

This eagerly awaited new collection brings Zadie Smith’s unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in five sections—eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning, and confessing—she unspools personal dialogues with various sources of inspiration. She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kara Walker. She invites us along to the movies in her review of Tár, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and to her desk when researching the Tichborne trial and writing her New York Times bestselling novel The Fraud. She asks us to look at the young Michael Jackson and to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. And she shows us once again in Dead and Alive her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

A master of perception always in search of a lesser-known reality, Smith continually assesses, and reassesses, what it means to identify with the contemporary world, and how we choose to remember the history that brought us here.
1147156725
Dead and Alive: Essays (Signed Book)
A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays

In the past two decades, few writers have been able to master the craft and art of the essay in the way that Zadie Smith has. Her discerning eye and singularly intimate perspective emblazon Smith as a preeminent critic of our generation, society, and culture. In her inimitable honesty and poignant voice, Smith studies the fault lines that divide us and consistently finds within them grounds for solidarity and compassion.

This eagerly awaited new collection brings Zadie Smith’s unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in five sections—eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning, and confessing—she unspools personal dialogues with various sources of inspiration. She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kara Walker. She invites us along to the movies in her review of Tár, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and to her desk when researching the Tichborne trial and writing her New York Times bestselling novel The Fraud. She asks us to look at the young Michael Jackson and to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. And she shows us once again in Dead and Alive her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

A master of perception always in search of a lesser-known reality, Smith continually assesses, and reassesses, what it means to identify with the contemporary world, and how we choose to remember the history that brought us here.
30.0 Pre Order
Dead and Alive: Essays (Signed Book)

Dead and Alive: Essays (Signed Book)

by Zadie Smith
Dead and Alive: Essays (Signed Book)

Dead and Alive: Essays (Signed Book)

by Zadie Smith

Hardcover(Signed Edition)

$30.00 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Available for Pre-Order. This item will be released on October 28, 2025

Related collections and offers


Overview

Notes From Your Bookseller

One of the most impactful voices of our time takes a microscope to the modern world in this inspiring, incisive and insightful collection of essays. With candor and care, she cuts to the core of many of the pervading topics that dominate our collective consciousness.

A profound and unparalleled literary voice, Zadie Smith returns with a resounding collection of essays

In the past two decades, few writers have been able to master the craft and art of the essay in the way that Zadie Smith has. Her discerning eye and singularly intimate perspective emblazon Smith as a preeminent critic of our generation, society, and culture. In her inimitable honesty and poignant voice, Smith studies the fault lines that divide us and consistently finds within them grounds for solidarity and compassion.

This eagerly awaited new collection brings Zadie Smith’s unique skills as an essayist to bear on a range of subjects that have captured her attention in recent years. Organized in five sections—eyeballing, considering, reconsidering, mourning, and confessing—she unspools personal dialogues with various sources of inspiration. She takes an exhilaratingly close look at artists Toyin Ojih Odutola and Kara Walker. She invites us along to the movies in her review of Tár, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and to her desk when researching the Tichborne trial and writing her New York Times bestselling novel The Fraud. She asks us to look at the young Michael Jackson and to mourn with her the passing of writers Joan Didion, Martin Amis, Hilary Mantel, Philip Roth and Toni Morrison. And she shows us once again in Dead and Alive her unrivalled ability to think through critically and humanely some of the most urgent preoccupations and tendencies of our troubled times.

A master of perception always in search of a lesser-known reality, Smith continually assesses, and reassesses, what it means to identify with the contemporary world, and how we choose to remember the history that brought us here.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9798217181230
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date: 10/28/2025
Edition description: Signed Edition
Pages: 352
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

About the Author

About The Author
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time, and The Fraud; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; three collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.

Hometown:

London, England

Date of Birth:

October 27, 1975

Place of Birth:

Willesden, London, England

Education:

B.A. in English, King's College at Cambridge University, 1998
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews