Swing Time: LONGLISTED for the Man Booker Prize 2017
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By Zadie Smith
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2 reviews
LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2017
SHORTLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS 2017
’Smith’s finest. Extraordinary, truly marvellous’ Observer
A dazzlingly exuberant novel moving from north west London to West Africa, from the critically acclaimed author of White Teeth, On Beauty and Grand Union
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 a close 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 a story about music and identity, race and class, those who follow the dance and those who lead it . . .
‘Superb’ Financial Times ‘Breathtaking’ TLS ‘Pitch-perfect’ Daily Telegraph
‘There is still no better chronicler of the modern British family than Zadie Smith’ Telegraph
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Reviews
Absolutely loved this brilliant novel in which issues of race, gender and class are central to the story about 2 friends who meet at a dance class as children. The story follows them through their childhoods and into their complicated and very different adult lives. I found the writing engaging and the plot and characters convincing. I loved the story; I found it thought provoking and interesting, and I recommend it to anyone who enjoys a considered read rather than a race-along page turner.
A really beautiful story and totally evocative and nostalgic for any Londoner.
