The Recurring Cast
Character guide · 6 books · 2000 to 2023 · Mostly set in London

Zadie Smith

Literary and generalLiterary fictionFamily and book club

Zadie Smith writes funny, warm, ambitious novels about modern London and its families. White Teeth follows two wartime friends, the Englishman Archie Jones and the Bangladeshi Samad Iqbal, and their children in Willesden.

Best estimate, compiled from series guides, publisher descriptions and reviews where available, and from memory otherwise. Book level only, not chapter level. Minor includes cameos and brief references. Each book carries a confidence rating in its tooltip. Her novels are standalones; leads are charted per book.

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Who appears in which book

Click a name to follow that character from book to book, or a book title to see its cast.

LLeadMMajor·MinorHas a note
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Zadie Smith books in order

Each series in publication order, with its lead characters. Where the story runs in a different order, switch to Story order. Crossover books are marked and listed under their main series. Use My books to track what you have read.

Novels

6 books · Mostly set in LondonLiterary fictionFamily and book club
  1. 1White Teeth2000With Archie Jones and Samad IqbalBuy on Amazon
  2. 2The Autograph Man2002With Alex-Li TandemBuy on Amazon
  3. 3On Beauty2005With Howard Belsey · Set in the fictional Wellington, MassachusettsBuy on Amazon
  4. 4NW2012With Leah Hanwell and Natalie BlakeBuy on Amazon
  5. 5Swing Time2016Buy on Amazon
  6. 6The Fraud2023With Eliza TouchetBuy on Amazon

Characters

11 recurring and key characters, with the book each one first appears in.

Leads