White Teeth

Archie Jones, a mild, unremarkable Englishman, and Samad Iqbal, a proud, devout Bangladeshi waiter, forged an unlikely friendship as young soldiers at the tail end of the Second World War. Decades later, both are raising families in multicultural North London, and their tangled histories and stubborn hopes ripple down into the lives of their children.

Spanning generations and continents, Zadie Smith's exuberant debut follows the Joneses, the Iqbals, and the intellectual Chalfen family as they collide across questions of race, religion, science, immigration, and inheritance. With sharp comedy and enormous warmth, the novel captures the messy, hybrid reality of modern Britain — the way the past clings to the present, and the way children rarely become what their parents intend.

A landmark of contemporary fiction, "White Teeth" is a sprawling, funny, and big-hearted portrait of a changing nation.