Zadie Smith tells Dua Lipa inequality has made culture clashes feel ‘existential’

The novelist Zadie Smith has said that inequality has made culture clashes feel “existential”, adding that it has become “natural to look to your left and think ‘who the fuck are you?’”

In an interview with Dua Lipa as part of the Southbank Centre’s London literature festival, Smith argued that the demise of Britain’s “incredible, historic” welfare system has led to greater divisions.

The pair discussed Smith’s debut novel, White Teeth, which was published in 2000 and primarily set in the last three decades of the 20th century.

Asked by Lipa about how attitudes towards multiculturalism have changed since the 80s and 90s, and the current “dividing line” on immigration in UK politics, Smith pointed to increased inequality and unemployment.

“When you’re living in basically decent housing, when you hurt yourself you know you can go to hospital and be treated just like the rich kid down the road – then the differences [with others] become interesting, sometimes annoying, but not existential,” said the novelist.

“Now, they’re existential. When you can’t get a job, when there’s no housing, when your schools are falling apart, when the hospitals are falling apart – now it feels existential.”

White Teeth traces the stories of three families – the Joneses, the Iqbals and the Chalfens – and is set in Kilburn and Willesden in north-west London, where Smith grew up. The writer praised her state education, saying it has stood her “in incredibly good stead” throughout her life. “I can talk to anyone. The posh kids up the hill? Not so much.

“Now, when you look at my neighbourhood, the same schools, the same situations – everything is harder, everybody is poorer, everybody is struggling more,” she continued. “It becomes very, very natural to look to your left and think ‘who the fuck are you?’ That is an economic and structural question.”

Smith encouraged developing “a nostalgia for the left”. While “you don’t want the LGBTQ+ politics of the 80s, you don’t want the racial prejudice” depicted in White Teeth, “do you want the healthcare and the schools and the education? I think you do. So it’s about looking back and seeing what was of value – and what was [of] value to me was a social democracy that basically functioned, and might function again if people cared about it, wanted it, believed it could happen again.”

On the writing process for White Teeth – which she began when she was 21 and was published when she was 24 – Smith said that she finished the acclaimed novel in the aftermath of being broken up with and moving back in with her mum.

“Everybody else was out clubbing, I was like, ‘I’m fucking stuck in this room, finishing a novel,’” she said. But Valentine’s Day was approaching, and “all my girlfriends were like ‘we gotta go out, go on the pull’.” She ended up finishing it on 14 February and then “literally ran straight out to the club” – so the ending of the novel is “a chaos”, she said, adding that this is “why young people shouldn’t write novels”.

Since White Teeth, Smith has written five novels – The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time and The Fraud – along with short stories and nonfiction. Her most recent book was the essay collection Dead and Alive.

Lipa and Smith also discussed facing criticism for their works, with Lipa saying that “learning to live with reviews – bad reviews, good reviews” was “one of the hardest things for me to learn to deal with”. Smith said that literary criticism is “absolutely essential” because it “helps develop taste”.

“I’m very interested in criticism,” added Smith. “Even if it’s a bad review of me, if it’s well written, if it’s intelligent … I quite love ‘takedowns’.”

London literature festival runs until 1 November, with speakers selected by Lipa including Patti Smith, Malorie Blackman and Hisham Matar. Lipa runs a book club, Service95, through which she interviews authors on a monthly basis.