All About Women: Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith was a guest of the All About Women festival at Sydney Opera House. It was an honour to be in conversation with her, and also a tad daunting. There is no one smarter. We spoke about her fiction, essay writing and why she’s drawn to it, her perspectives on craft, about identity; how she thinks about, how it ends up in her writing, and why we struggle with it so much. She shared her ideas about systems that work and what happens when we lose them or when they are eroded (like universal health care, education that works, hospitals that are properly funded, healthy communities). She doesn’t ever grand stand or lecture, there’s nothing didactic in her writing or the way she speaks. 

We also spoke about how she uses language, and her take on technology & social media and the many ways the algorithm shapes most of our lives now, and her choice to stay the hell away from it. I also asked her about Reading; how we do it and how we understand ourselves and the world through it. She was funny, sharp, jostled everyone there to think and look and read from different vantage points (if possible). In her writing Zadie opens the door wide for all of us to wander around inside, and to find what we find, and make our own meaning. She opened lots of doors during this conversation in Sydney.