The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
The eagerly-awaited follow-up to the bestselling and prize-winning White Teeth, which established Zadie Smith as an outstanding new writer. Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. A small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire, it is his business to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them, occasionally fake them, and all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame. The Autograph Man is a deeply funny, existential tour around the hollow things of modernity - celebrity, cinema, and the ugly triumph of symbol over experience. Pushing against the tide of his generation, Alex-Li is on his way to finding enlightenment, otherwise known as some part of himself that cannot be signed, celebrated or sold.
One feels for Zadie SmithShe's had a reasonably well publicised case of writer's block and has wearied of the media treadmill that followed the success of her first novel, White Teeth. Her experiences of fame have clearly influenced her new novel which in part deals with the twin-headed beast of celebrity and recognition. Alex-Li Tandem collects and sells autographs. Sometimes the ones he sells are fake, "all to give the people what they want - a little piece of fame". The novel sounds distinctly autobiographical. No one knows better than Smith what a hollow world 'celebrity' occupies. This novel will doubtless puncture it with the same sharpness and panache that marked her famous debut.
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time, as well as a novella, 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, and NW was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of fiction at New York University and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780241139981 |
| ISBN 10 | 0241139988 |
| Title | The Autograph Man |
| Author | Zadie Smith |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Penguin Books Ltd |
| Year published | 2002-09-12 |
| Number of pages | 432 |
| Prizes | Winner of Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize for Fiction 2003, Winner of Jewish Quarterly Wingate Literary Prize: Fiction 2003, Short-listed for Orange Prize 2003, Short-listed for Orange Prize for Fiction 2003, Short-listed for Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award 2003, Short-listed for Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize 2003 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |