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Wild Card with Rachel Martin

Zadie Smith lives more in the world than on the page

Wild Card with Rachel Martin

NPR

Society & Culture

4.6992 Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

London today is very different from the one Zadie Smith grew up in and the one she wrote about in her debut novel "White Teeth." That is just one of the things Smith is grappling with 25 years after her best-selling book's debut. She talks to Rachel about the difficulty of revisiting the first few pages of "White Teeth," the wisdom only teenagers possess, and fighting despair with crème brûlée.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for NPR and the following message come from the Walton Family Foundation,

0:05.1

working to create access to opportunity for people and communities by tackling tough social and environmental problems.

0:11.9

More information is at waltonfamilyfoundation.org.

0:15.9

Is time a positive or negative force in your life?

0:19.6

I mean, time.

0:21.1

If anyone who's ever read me, knows that this is my number one.

0:24.6

Number one topic.

0:26.7

Time, it's a complete obsession.

0:29.7

I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wildcard.

0:32.6

The game where cards control the conversation.

0:36.5

Each week, my guest answers questions about their life.

0:40.0

Questions pulled from a deck of cards.

0:42.4

They're allowed to skip one question and to flip one question back on me.

0:46.9

My guest this week is the author Zadie Smith.

0:49.9

I take it personally.

0:51.6

Time.

0:52.5

But, yes, but also, I know that, you know, a world without limits would be an intolerable world.

1:00.5

I've always felt there wasn't enough time.

1:02.9

And it has to be accepted.

1:05.1

Anyone who understands that time is here, not to be battled, but to be accepted, is my hero.

1:12.4

I want you to think back to when you were 19 years old. Hold that person in your imagination for a minute.

1:18.9

What motivated you back then? What goals did you have? How did that version of you spend time?

...

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