https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2020/jul/07/reading-group-were-reading-white-teeth-by-zadie-smith-in-july

After astounding and confusing critics in 2000, Smith’s landmark debut is turning 20 as an established classic. Which should make it a cracking tale to read together

Zadie Smith’s White Teeth has come out of the hat and will be the subject of July’s reading group. Which feels like a great thing for all sorts of reasons – not least that this year marks the 20th anniversary of this landmark in British literature.

Even before White Teeth was published at the start of 2000, Zadie Smith was a sensation. Just 24 and brilliantly clever, her debut novel was rumoured to have sold for around £250,000 on the basis of an 80-page extract. Unusually in publishing, White Teeth actually repaid the big money up front. It sold big and fast and people loved it. It was a Guardian first book award winner. It won the James Tait Black memorial prize, the Whitbread book award, and the Betty Trask award. “Believe the hype,” said The Times. The Telegraph said it was “outstanding”. The Financial Times declared it “extraordinarily accomplished”. The Independent heard “a great big blast of a novel.” When it arrived in the US, critics’ doyenne Michiko Kakutani declared it “a novel that announces the debut of a preternaturally gifted new writer” in the New York Times.