The Autograph Man

Description

The Autograph Man is Zadie Smith's whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times. ;Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.;'A glorious concoction written by our most beguiling and original prose-wizard' Independent on Sunday ;'A brilliant comedy with a tantalising throb of mystic philosophy underneath' Philip Hensher, Books of the Year, Spectator;'A pleasure from the first page to the last' Evening Standard;'Intellectually agile ... ecstatic inventiveness' Time;'A classic' Spectator ;'Genuinely funny and entertaining' Guardian;'Vibrant, highly imaginative' Jewish Chronicle;'Full of irony, humour, the search for love and the fear of death . . . a touching, thoughtful, deeply felt rite-of-passage novel' Sunday Telegraph;%%%The Autograph Man is Zadie Smith's whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times. ;;;;Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers in The Autograph Man a brilliant, unforgettable tale about who we are and what we really want to be.;;;;'A glorious concoction written by our most beguiling and original prose-wizard' Independent on Sunday ;; ;;'A brilliant comedy with a tantalising throb of mystic philosophy underneath' Philip Hensher, Books of the Year, Spectator;;;;'A pleasure from the first page to the last' Evening Standard;;;;'Intellectually agile ... ecstatic inventiveness' Time;;;;'A classic' Spectator ;;;;'Genuinely funny and entertaining' Guardian;;;;'Vibrant, highly imaginative' Jewish Chronicle;;;;'Full of irony, humour, the search for love and the fear of death . . . a touching, thoughtful, deeply felt rite-of-passage novel' Sunday Telegraph;;;;Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. Her debut novel, White Teeth, won the Whitbread First Novel Award, the Guardian First Book Award, the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction, and the Commonwealth Writers' First Book Prize, and was included in TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. Her second novel, On Beauty, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction. She has written two further novels, The Autograph Man and NW, a collection of essays, Changing My Mind, and has edited a short-story collection, The Book of Other People.;%%%The Autograph Man is Zadie Smith's whirlwind tour of celebrity and our fame-obsessed times. ;Following one Alex-Li Tandem - a twenty-something, Chinese-Jewish autograph dealer turned on by sex, drugs and organised religion - it takes in London and New York, love and death, fathers and sons, as Alex tries to discover how a piece of paper can bring him closer to his heart's desire. Exposing our misconceptions about our idols - about ourselves - Zadie Smith delivers in The Autog

Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. She is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty and NW, as well as The Embassy of Cambodia and a collection of essays, Changing My Mind. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002, and was listed as one of Granta's 20 Best Young British Novelists in 2003 and again in 2013. White Teeth won multiple literary awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. On Beauty was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction 2006, and NW was shortlisted for the Baileys Prize for Fiction 2013. Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of fiction at New York University and lives in London and New York with her husband and two children. In 2016 she will publish her next novel, Swing Time.

"Intelligent. . . . exquisitely clever. . . . an ironic commentary about fame, mortality, and the triumph of image over reality." --"The Boston Globe ""The same bracing intelligence and salty humor that distinguished her debut. . . . Smith scatters marvelous sentences and sharp insights on nearly every page." --"LA Times" "A lovely surprise. Zadie Smith . . . has come out with a second book that is actually "better" than its predecessor: its dialog funnier, its language even more plugged in, more wired." --"Esquire " "A preternaturally gifted . . . writer [with] a voice that's street-smart and learned, sassy and philosophical all at the same time." -"The New York Times " "Savvy, witty and exuberant." -New York "Daily News " "Smith is young and smart, and . . . she proves to be an amazingly gifted writer." -"Washington Post Book World" "Smith writes sharp dialogue for every age and race-and she's funny as hell." -"Newsweek" "[Zadie Smith] possesses a more than ordinary share of talent." -"USA Today " "Absolutely delightful." -Alan Cheuse, "Chicago Tribune" "Smith's clever, aphoristic observations and snappy dialogue are so delightful they tend to become addictive. . . . [The Autograph Man is] always entertaining." -"Elle "