Books in Today's Writers and Their Works series

Zadie Smith: Critical Essays is a timely collection of critical articles examining how Zadie Smith’s novels and short stories interrogate race, postcolonialism, and identity. Essays explore the various ways Smith approaches issues of race, either by deconstructing notions of race or interrogating the complexity of biracial identity; and how Smith takes on contemporary debates concerning notions of Britishness, Englishness, and Black Britishness. Some essays also consider the shifting identities adopted by those who identify with both British and West Indian, South Asian, or East Asian ancestry. Other essays explore Smith’s contemporary postcolonial approach to Britain’s colonial legacy, and the difference between how immigrants and first-generation British-born children deal with cultural alienation and displacement. This thought-provoking collection is a much-needed critical tool for students and researchers in both contemporary British literature and Diasporic literature and culture.

In a time exceptionally preoccupied with the relations between the personal and the political, sexuality and power, Measure for Measure is one of the most frequently staged and discussed of Shakespeare's plays. Drawing on performance history and current critical approaches, this study considers the play in relation to its historical contexts and contemporary relevance. It traces the dramatic unfolding of the plot through the social and theatrical spaces of Shakespeare's Vienna: court, convent, prison, and public street. It explores the intertwining of religion, sexuality, politics and morality in the institutions associated with the maintenance of social order in Vienna, and asks whether the world of the play holds open any possibilities for challenging the power of these institutions. The reader is led carefully through some of Measure for Measure's most problematic moments, but the compelling theatrical pleasures offered by this strange and fascinating play are not overlooked.