In early 2000, the book that Zadie Smith had begun writing at Cambridge University “as a way of managing anxiety about my exams” entered the world. It was called White Teeth. Its creation had been feverish, and, despite the myriad pressures of university life, it was all she’d been able to think about during her time there.
“I remember being totally obsessed, writing every day, all day,” Smith says now, 25 years and several million sales later. “I’d have a massive fried breakfast at Café Rouge each morning – an insane luxury because it meant you didn’t have to bother with lunch, which breaks up the writing day. Then I’d write and smoke all day until dinner.”
