Grand Union

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Zadie Smith's impeccable voice and mastery of language shine in this wonder of a story collection, Grand Union. For years now, audiences have understood Smith's humor and empathy for the human condition, and in Grand Union Smith will treat readers to a form few authors ever truly master — the short story. As if the reader were able to crack open the histories of passersby in Grand Central station, the stories Smith imparts are varied and intricate. They contemplate the existential questions of the millennium, the resistance of younger generations to the wisdom of the older, and philosophize the meaning of life, all within just a few pages each. It is a remarkable addition to the growing body of Zadie Smith's work and will surely be treasured by generations long after its publication. Recommended By Alex Y., Powells.com

The first short story collection from master novelist Zadie Smith is an assemblage of brief but potent vignettes, ranging from aimless Spanish resort holidays to uncomfortable Manhattan lingerie shopping, that all offer reflections on identity in changing times. Recommended By Keith M., Powells.com

A dazzling collection of short fiction

Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and her inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. Interleaving eleven completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from The New Yorker and elsewhere, Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

Nothing is off limits, and everything--when captured by Smith's brilliant gaze — feels fresh and relevant. Perfectly paced and utterly original, Grand Union highlights the wonders Zadie Smith can do.

"A riot of quirkiness and eccentricity, and the mood of the book, which shifts from droll humor to melancholy to gentle vulnerability, is unclassifiable — and just right." Kirkus

"Smart and bewitching...The modern world is refracted in ways that are both playful and rigorous, formally experimental and socially aware...Smith exercises her range without losing her wry, slightly cynical humor." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

"Nineteen erudite stories wheel through a constellation of topics, tones, and fonts to dizzying literary effect...Wit marbles Smith's fiction...Several of Smith's stories are on their ways to becoming classics." Kirkus (Starred Review)

Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time, as well as two collections of essays, Changing My Mind and Feel Free. Zadie was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2002, and was listed as one of Granta's 20 Best Young British Novelists in 2003 and again in 2013. White Teeth won multiple literary awards including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award. On Beauty was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Orange Prize for Fiction, and NW was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of fiction at New York University and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

It’s May, it’s Short Story Month, and for us this annual exhortation to read brief couldn’t come at a better time...

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