{"id":44297,"date":"2015-11-28T02:41:58","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T02:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=44297"},"modified":"2015-11-29T01:12:34","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T01:12:34","slug":"part-1-dispatches-from-dream-city-zadie-smith-and-barack-obama%ef%bb%bf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=44297","title":{"rendered":"PART 1: Dispatches from Dream City: Zadie Smith and Barack Obama\ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"

PART 1: Dispatches from Dream City: Zadie Smith and Barack Obama<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Electric Lit<\/a>
\n2010-10-19<\/p>\n

The Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Reading and re-reading Zadie Smith\u2019s<\/a> spookily empathetic essay<\/a> about Dreams of My Father<\/a><\/em> and the natural linguistic flexibility of the biracial, upwardly mobile figure, the inevitable thought occurred to me: Is Zadie Smith the Barack Obama<\/a> of literature?<\/p>\n

Consider the parallels between the two: both are biracial (Zadie Smith had a white English father and a black Jamaican mother). Both are precocious strivers who came from somewhat d\u00e9class\u00e9<\/a> origins and rose to become shining examples of their respective countries\u2019 meritocratic aspirations (Zadie Smith grew up in a council flat<\/a>, the English equivalent of a housing project, and received a scholarship to Oxford). Both give evidence of having been closer to their white parent. Both seem to promise liberation from the bad faith that has existed on both sides of the color line since the start of the post-civil rights era<\/a>. Both are figures who because they smoothly speak the language of progressivism (in Smith\u2019s case, the language of progressivism is the language of avant-garde literature and abstruse academic theory) appear\u2013or in the case of Obama, appeared\u2013less cautious and conservative than they really are. Changing My Mind<\/em> is the title of Zadie Smith\u2019s collection of what she calls \u2018occasional essays;\u2019 it might as well be titled \u2018Only Connect,\u2019 to use the credo of her beloved E.M.Forster\u2019s<\/a> Howards End<\/em><\/a>\u2013like Forster and like Obama, Zadie Smith is a builder of bridges and a reconciler of the seemingly irreconcilable.<\/p>\n

There is a remarkable essay, \u201cTwo Directions for the Novel,\u201d which is a kind of Beer Summit<\/a> for contemporary fiction: on one side of the table is Joseph O\u2019Neill<\/a>, author of the Gatsbyesque<\/a> 9\/11<\/a> novel Netherland<\/em><\/a>, on the other side is Tom McCarthy<\/a>, writer of manifestos (still, after a century, a prerequisite for avant-garde credentials) and author of the astringently difficult novel Remainder<\/em><\/a>…<\/p>\n

Read the part 1 of the article here<\/a>. Read part 2 here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PART 1: Dispatches from Dream City: Zadie Smith and Barack Obama Electric Lit 2010-10-19 The Editor Reading and re-reading Zadie Smith\u2019s spookily empathetic essay about Dreams of My Father and the natural linguistic flexibility of the biracial, upwardly mobile figure, the inevitable thought occurred to me: Is Zadie Smith the Barack Obama of literature? Consider […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,10,20],"tags":[22068,22069,1344],"class_list":["post-44297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-uk","category-usa","tag-electric-lit","tag-electric-literature","tag-zadie-smith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44297"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44343,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44297\/revisions\/44343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}