part 5 of a 10-part series I’ve written a lot these past few days, so I will just say this: Zadie Smith might be the perfect woman. At least that’s what I thought as I read “White Teeth,” one of those pyrotechnic multi-character novels about modern polyglot London. She was funny but deep, light but . . . Read More

I am standing at the desk of an immigration officer at London’s Heathrow airport. The man flips through my passport. “And what is your business here?” he asks, not looking up. “I’m a writer,” I say. It took a while to put that down on official forms. I usually put editor, and then sometimes I . . . Read More