An ambitious, 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, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It’s a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either…Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them.

Moving from north-west London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time. Praise for Zadie Smith: ‘Smith is the most naturally gifted young novelist around – with a fastidious ear for dialogue and a lethally quiet comic touch. Above all, she can move us’ Times Literary Supplement ‘[Smith] packs more intelligence, humour and sheer energy into any given scene than anyone else of her generation’ Sunday Telegraph ‘Her dialogue sings and soars; terse, packed and sassy.

Format: Hardcover
Published: UK, 2016
Publisher: Hamish Hamilton Ltd
Languages: English
Pages: 416
ISBN 13: 9780241144152
ISBN 10: 0241144159