Sections
Magazine
Latest Issue

What is the future of liberalism? Timothy Garton Ash outlines the threats to liberal democracy and how it can renew itself in a post-Trump age. Lionel Barber presents an authoritative institutional portrait of the Treasury and Cal Flyn makes the case for a different kind of climate writing.

Read Now Or Checkout the archive
Previous
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
August/September 2020
Events
Next Event

Homes for all: what new social and affordable housing can do for Britain

Previous
Watch: The 2020 Think Tank Awards Ceremony
Watch: What next for pensions? Why the 2020s are the crunch decade
Build, build, build: how can we overcome the barriers to affordable and social housing
To the archive
Podcast
Latest Episode

The Prospect Interview #162: George Saunders’s masterclass in the Russian short story

Previous
The Prospect Interview #161: Women, slavery and resistance
The Prospect Interview #160: Covid-19 then and now
The Prospect Interview #159: Who was the real Jesus?
To the archive
Arts & Books Magazine Class race Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith’s “Swing Time”—a successful return to her roots

Smith goes back to the world of "White Teeth" in her most mature novel yet

By Sameer Rahim  
October 12, 2016
November 2016

Click here to read more from our November 2016 issue

Swing Time by Zadie Smith (Hamish Hamilton, £18.99)

VS Naipaul knows how hard it is to write fiction in the wake of an early success. His buoyant masterpiece A House for Mr Biswas (1961), drawing on his childhood in Trinidad, came out while he was still in his twenties. The later novels—whatever their…

Register today to continue reading

You’ve hit your limit of three articles in the last 30 days. To get seven more, simply enter your email address below.

You’ll also receive our free e-book Prospect’s Top Thinkers 2020 and our newsletter with the best new writing on politics, economics, literature and the arts.

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click here to learn more about these purposes and how we use your data. You will be able to opt-out of further contact on the next page and in all our communications.

We want to hear what you think about this article. Submit a letter to letters@prospect-magazine.co.uk

Sameer Rahim

Sameer Rahim is Prospect’s Managing Editor. His novel “Asghar and Zahra” (JM Originals) was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize. He was a judge for the 2020 Booker Prize

More stories by Sameer Rahim

More From Prospect