novel

Zadie Smith

Arts, Culture & Media

Kurt Andersen talks with literary superstar Zadie Smith. Smith’s debut White Teeth, published when she was just 24, tells a complex and vivid story of two London families over 18 years. Her new novel On Beauty tackles racial, ethnic, and class identity with humor and intensity.

360 Staff Pick: Blame

Arts, Culture & Media

360 Staff Pick: Little Bee

Arts, Culture & Media

360 Staff Pick: No Joke

Arts, Culture & Media

Jonathan Franzen Mans Up

Arts, Culture & Media
Books

A journalist uses statistics to uncover authors’ ‘cinnamon words’

Arts

Who’s the most-clichéd author? Which common pronoun is nearly absent in “The Hobbit?” And what’s a cinnamon word?

Author Nayomi Munaweera was born in Sri Lanka, and then moved with her family to Birnin Kebi, Nigeria, to avoid civil war. Here Munaweera stands with her mother, Mali, and younger sister, Namal.

After escaping turmoil in Sri Lanka and Nigeria, her next hurdle was surviving LA schools

Books

Nayomi Munaweera was born in Sri Lanka, raised in Nigeria — and then fled that country for the US after a coup. Now, she’s published her first novel and recounts the difficulties of learning the ins and outs of teen life in Los Angeles, including her first encounters with hairspray.