White Teeth

A deeply human debut novel that spans generations, cultures and ideologies in the heart of contemporary London. Zadie Smith tells the story of two unlikely friends—Archie Jones, a bumbling Englishman with a quiet past, and Samad Iqbal, a fiercely proud Bengali Muslim—who meet as young soldiers during World War II and remain tied together long after the war is over.

The novel traces the lives of Archie and Samad’s families across decades, weaving together the experiences of immigrants and their British-born children as they grapple with questions of heritage, faith, race and belonging. Archie’s daughter, Irie, struggles with self-image and cultural confusion while Samad’s twin sons, Magid and Millat, grow up in radically different ways—one as a devout intellectual, the other drawn to rebellion and extremism. Their intertwined stories reflect the wider tensions of a multicultural society at the turn of the 21st century.

Brimming with humor, empathy, and bold narrative energy, White Teeth explores the legacy of colonialism, the challenges of assimilation and the unpredictable ways in which the past continues to shape the present.

One of the New York Times’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century.