![]() ![]() ![]() NW, Zadie Smith’s fourth novel, is a text ostensibly about the relationship between two women from northwest London, Leah Hanwell and Natalie (born Keisha) Blake. Yet, it was this novel about the northwest corner of London, specifically the neighborhoods of Kilburn and Willesden, that I used as the capstone of my ENGL 1102 course, “The Global Novel in English,” to drive home the argument I had made all semester: British literature is inherently global, and there is no way to understand the novel or, indeed, England/Britain/the United Kingdom itself, without understanding the transnational implications of “English” literature. A novel deeply-rooted in a specific London neighborhood, one so concerned with locality that one of the main characters is “as faithful in her allegiance to this two-mile square of the city as other people are to their families, or their countries” (6), Zadie Smith’s NW (2012) may not seem an intuitive choice for a reflection on teaching global literature. ![]()
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