Swing Time

'Smith's finest. Extraordinary, truly marvellous' Observer 'Superb' Financial Times 'Breathtaking' TLS 'Pitch-perfect' Daily Telegraph 'A tale of two girls who meet in aWest London dance class...A page-turner that's also beautifully written ' Glamour 'There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith' Telegraph SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017 Adazzlingly exuberant new novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the multi-award-winning author of White Teeth and On Beauty Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, black bodies and black music, what it means to belong, what it means to be free. It's aclose but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten either. Bursting with energy, rhythm and movement, Swing Time is Zadie Smith's most ambitious novel yet. It is astory about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it ...