"These days, it feels to me like you make a devil's pact when you walk into this country. You hand over your passport at the check-in, you get stamped, you want to make a little money, get yourself started...but you mean to go back! Who would want to stay? Cold, wet, miserable; terrible food, dreadful newspapers - who would want to stay? In a place where you are never welcomed, only tolerated. Just tolerated. Like you are an animal finally house-trained. Who would want to stay? But you have made a devil's pact...it drags you in and suddenly you are unsuitable to return, your children are unrecognizable, you belong nowhere."
From White Teeth by Zadie Smith (2000)
Zadie Smith *1975
Zadie Smith isn't really an obscure 'lesser known' author who would still need an introduction, even to non-English readers. I had taken part in several literary discussions here in the Netherlands on the various titles by Zadie Smith. And it's been only last month that she was listed a second time as 'Granta's Best of Young British Novelists'.
Yet, I've been prompted by this particular quote as I will 'return home' for some weeks to attend my father's 80th birthday celebrations.
Is it actually possible to 'return home', I wonder? Where do I 'return to'? Childhood places? Childhood friends? Everyone's moved on in life each going in their own chosen direction, just as I have. If I were to 'return home' for good, I wonder if we would still be friends?
What about those whose country changed completely such as the former DDR? After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the whole system altered and former conventions/convictions were radically overthrown. Where would they 'return home' to?
What about the millions forced to flee their homes for any number of reasons and never being able to 'return home'?
Do you remember Anjali Joseph? I first introduced her in November 2011 on this blog? She has since published her second novel, Another Country (2012) in which she describes a typical modern nomad life. The protagonist is trying to settle in three different countries. A second novel with its weaknesses but still strong in imagery:
"For each girl, the other's home was non-concrete, but superstitiously to be believed, in the way of a story heard in infancy; it held a reality that had nothing to do with experience. Both knew it, and it made them feel tender, as though for their own lives, which might have been continuing elsewhere."
I am curious what 'returning home' means to you - feel free to comment!
To those of you unfamiliar with Zadie Smith and her books: she was born Sadie Smith in the northwest London Borough of Brent, UK. Her latest book NW (2012) refers to it as 'NW' is part of the postcode of that particular borough. She grew up with two elder half-siblings from her father's first marriage and two younger borthers from his second marriage to her mother, who had immigrated to the UK from Jamaica in 1969. They were a very musical family: while Zadie loved tap dancing, singing and performing, working as a Jazz singer during her studies, her two younger brothers became rappers. But in the end, it was literature that captured and won Zadie's heart.
Zadie's first novel White Teeth was published in 2000 and was received with fantastic reviews. It immediately became a bestseller and was praised internationally. She won various awards and it raised expectations for her second novel: The Autograph Man. Published in 2002, the novel was less favourably received - but then again, this is quite a familiar occurence for highly acclaimed first book authors. It is said that she even experienced a short spell of a writer's block while writing her second novel. Zadie visited the US in 2002-2003 as Radcliff Institute for Advanced Study Fellow at Harvard University. On Beauty, published in 2005, was written in that period and is set mainly around the area of Boston and won back her standing as an acclaimed author. She was subsequently shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2006 and in 2012 her latest novel NW was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of 2012 by the NYT. Zadie taught fiction at Columbia University School of the Arts and joined the New York University as a tenured Professor of fiction in 2010. She currently commutes with her family between New York City and London, UK.
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