White Teeth (Signed First Edition)

Smith, Zadie

ISBN 10: 0375501851 / ISBN 13: 9780375501852

Published by Random House, New York, 2000

About this Item

8vo.,448pp. Beautiful Stated First US Edition with number sequence to "2" as called for by Random House. The noted author's first novel. Square, tight and clean throughout with little or no wear. Equally attractive unclipped dust jacket, ($24.95), is fresh and bright with no chipping, creases, toning or tears. Signed by the author on the title page. A gorgeous collectible copy.

Seller Inventory # 017854

Bibliographic Details

• Title: White Teeth (Signed First Edition)
• Publisher: Random House, New York
• Publication Date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0375501851
• ISBN 13: 9780375501852
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: First U.S. Edition.
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • Signed/Inscribed
  • Modern Literature
  • Author's First Book/Novel

About this title

Synopsis

On New Year's morning, 1975, Archie Jones sits in his car on a London road and waits for the exhaust fumes to fill his Cavalier Musketeer station wagon. Archie--working-class, ordinary, a failed marriage under his belt--is calling it quits, the deciding factor being the flip of a 20-pence coin. When the owner of a nearby halal butcher shop (annoyed that Archie's car is blocking his delivery area) comes out and bangs on the window, he gives Archie another chance at life and sets in motion this richly imagined, uproariously funny novel.

Epic and intimate, hilarious and poignant, White Teeth is the story of two North London families--one headed by Archie, the other by Archie's best friend, a Muslim Bengali named Samad Iqbal. Pals since they served together in World War II, Archie and Samad are a decidedly unlikely pair. Plodding Archie is typical in every way until he marries Clara, a beautiful, toothless Jamaican woman half his age, and the couple have a daughter named Irie (the Jamaican word for "no problem"). Samad--devoutly Muslim, hopelessly "foreign"--weds the feisty and always suspicious Alsana in a prearranged union. They have twin sons named Millat and Magid, one a pot-smoking punk-cum-militant Muslim and the other an insufferable science nerd. The riotous and tortured histories of the Joneses and the Iqbals are fundamentally intertwined, capturing an empire's worth of cultural identity, history, and hope.

Zadie Smith's dazzling first novel plays out its bounding, vibrant course in a Jamaican hair salon in North London, an Indian restaurant in Leicester Square, an Irish poolroom turned immigrant café, a liberal public school, a sleek science institute. A winning debut in every respect, White Teeth marks the arrival of a wondrously talented writer who takes on the big themes--faith, race, gender, history, and culture--and triumphs.

About the Author

Zadie Smith is twenty-four years old and a graduate of Cambridge University. White Teeth is her first novel, parts of which have appeared in Granta. Smith lives in North London.