Intimations: Six Essays

Intimations: Six Essays

?Smith does more than illuminate what we're going through right now. She offers a model of how to think ourselves through a fraught historical moment without getting hysterical or sanctimonious, without losing our compassion or our appreciation for what's good in other people. She teaches us how to be better at being human.? -John Powers, Fresh AirDeeply personal and powerfully moving, a short and timely series of reflective essays by one of the most clear-sighted and essential writers of our timeWritten during the early months of lockdown,Intimations explores ideas and questions prompted by an unprecedented situation. What does it mean to submit to a new reality--or to resist it? How do we compare relative sufferings? What is the relationship between time and work? In our isolation, what do other people mean to us? How do we think about them? What is the ratio of contempt to compassion in a crisis? When an unfamiliar world arrives, what does it reveal about the world that came before it?Suffused with a profound intimacy and tenderness in response to these extraordinary times,Intimations is a slim, suggestive volume with a wide scope, in which Zadie Smith clears a generous space for thought, open enough for each reader to reflect on what has happened--and what should come next.The author will donate her royalties from the sale of Intimations to charity.Review?One of our finest living writers has already produced what may be the first definitive chronicle of an era she dubs ?the global humbling.? In a series of essays both personal and political, Zadie Smith turns her sharp gaze to everything from a bouquet of peonies to the death of George Floyd, with disarming insight into her own shifting perspectives as woman, writer, mother, and citizen of the world. ?The people sometimes demand change. They almost never demand art,? she suggests at one point, too modestly; we may not have asked for Intimations, but this slim, resonant collection still feels like a gift.? -Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly