Zadie Smith’s latest novel is coming this summer.
Penguin Press announced that it will publish Smith’s The Fraud. It describes the book as “a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of ‘other people.’ ”
The novel, Smith’s first since Swing Time was published in 2016, follows Eliza Touchet, a Scottish housekeeper who is enthralled by the Tichborne trial, a real-life case in which an Australian butcher claimed to be the heir to an English baronetcy and its large estate. The book is based on actual events and people in Victorian England.
Smith made her literary debut in 2000 with her novel White Teeth, which quickly became a bestseller and won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Guardian First Book Award. Her other novels include The Autograph Man, On Beauty, and NW.
Last year, she published The Surprise, a children’s book co-written with her husband, novelist Nick Laird, and illustrated by Magenta Fox. A critic for Kirkus called it “a fun story of friendship and acceptance that treads familiar territory.”
Penguin Press calls The Fraud “a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who deserves to tell their story—and who deserves to be believed.” It’s scheduled for publication on Sept. 5.
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
