White Teeth by Zadie Smith
A well written at times grim view of the life for first and second generation immigrant in the United Kingdom..

• Most reviews focus on the supposed hilarity of the novel
• “Quirky, sassy, Extremely funny... witty... comedy ..”
• Only the financial times
• writes” hope for a multicultural society”
• This Whitbread winner could not be ignored by the literary establishment

  Zadie Smith writes:

  • But despite the intensity of the hunger- spiritual, physical, sexual- Samad still did his twelve hours daily in the restaurant.
  • By mid August he had upped his working hours to fourteen a day.. the ritual of it – folding pink napkins… polishing a glass…
  • He had taken one tedious skill and honed it to perfection… Here he was a one handed genius.”(p.141)
    
  • By reading a collectivity of popular cultural texts one may begin to reflect on the newcomer and minority sense of marginalization, and exclusion. However no single story provides a full understanding of the journey towards a cross cultural understanding.
  • We look for repeated patterns of behaviour and repeated storylines. These are important in understanding the total concept of how people live in new life worlds .