Zadie Smith - White Teeth

Please note: you are supposed to have read the book (at least the bigger part of it) and be able to contribute to the discussion...

About the book:

At the center of this invigorating novel are two unlikely friends, Archie Jones and Samad Iqbal. Hapless veterans of World War II, Archie and Samad and their families become agents of England’s irrevocable transformation. A second marriage to Clara Bowden, a beautiful, albeit tooth-challenged, Jamaican half his age, quite literally gives Archie a second lease on life, and produces Irie, a knowing child whose personality doesn’t quite match her name (Jamaican for “no problem”). Samad’s late-in-life arranged marriage (he had to wait for his bride to be born), produces twin sons whose separate paths confound Iqbal’s every effort to direct them, and a renewed, if selective, submission to his Islamic faith.

The book centres around the lives of two families in North-West London throughout the second half of the 20th century. Through the various and sometimes contradictory experiences of her vivid cast of characters, Smith explores topics including friendship, ethnic and generational unrest, globalisation and identity in a rapidly changing world.