Feel Free: Essays

　　在一鳴驚人的出道作《白牙》發表以來，將近二十年的寫作生涯，Zadie Smith不僅僅建立了傑出小說家的形象，也交出了相當出色的短文和評論作品。

　　本書是Zadie Smith最新出版的散文集，全書共分為五個部分：In the World、In the Audience、In the Gallery、On the Bookshelf、Feel Free，集結未曾發表的新作，以及經典作品如"Joy"、"Find Your Beach"等。其中收錄的舊作，發表時間主要在2010年到2017年間，看起來似乎有過時的危險，但她的文字絕對經得起考驗。Smith在本書中，將她敏銳的觀察力和獨特的聲音，拓展到更廣泛的主題上，從英國脫歐到Jay-Z的歌詞，到作者自己的童年房間……她的散文內容涵蓋文學、藝術、電影、文化評論等，同時也呈現了個人的生活經歷。雖然自稱未曾受過專業的報導寫作訓練，但Smith犀利、真摯的文字，提供了對於現今文化、政治事件的深入剖析，她深刻而充滿人性的見解令人折服。(文/博客來編譯)

　　From Zadie Smith, one of the most beloved authors of her generation, a new collection of essays

　　Since she burst spectacularly into view with her debut novel almost two decades ago, Zadie Smith has established herself not just as one of the world’s preeminent fiction writers, but also a brilliant and singular essayist. She contributes regularly to The New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on a range of subjects, and each piece of hers is a literary event in its own right.

　　Arranged into five sections--In the World, In the Audience, In the Gallery, On the Bookshelf, and Feel Free--this new collection poses questions we immediately recognize. What is The Social Network--and Facebook itself--really about? ＂It’s a cruel portrait of us: 500 million sentient people entrapped in the recent careless thoughts of a Harvard sophomore.＂ Why do we love libraries? ＂Well-run libraries are filled with people because what a good library offers cannot be easily found elsewhere: an indoor public space in which you do not have to buy anything in order to stay.＂ What will we tell our granddaughters about our collective failure to address global warming? ＂So I might say to her, look: the thing you have to appreciate is that we’d just been through a century of relativism and deconstruction, in which we were informed that most of our fondest-held principles were either uncertain or simple wishful thinking, and in many areas of our lives we had already been asked to accept that nothing is essential and everything changes--and this had taken the fight out of us somewhat.＂

　　Gathering in one place for the first time previously unpublished work, as well as already classic essays, such as, ＂Joy,＂ and, ＂Find Your Beach,＂ Feel Free offers a survey of important recent events in culture and politics, as well as Smith’s own life. Equally at home in the world of good books and bad politics, Brooklyn-born rappers and the work of Swiss novelists, she is by turns wry, heartfelt, indignant, and incisive--and never any less than perfect company. This is literary journalism at its zenith.