The late Martin Amis once wrote about Middlemarch that it is a ‘novel without weaknesses’. You might say something similar about The Fraud – The Guardian

An ingenious, unresolved tale told by a writer at the peak of her powers – The Daily Telegraph

Zadie Smith is one of Britain’s best-loved novelists. Her body of work includes three essay collections, a short-story collection, and six acclaimed novels, including White Teeth and On Beauty (which was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and won the 2006 Orange Prize for fiction).

Smith’s new novel, The Fraud, was named in December as one of the ten best books of 2023 by the staff of The New York Times Book Review. That accolade capped the widespread acclaim that greeted Smith’s novel – her first in seven years and her first historical novel – after its publication in September.

In June 2024 Zadie Smith came to the Intelligence Squared stage to talk about The Fraud and her writing career, and to mark the publication of the paperback edition of the novel.

The Fraud’s main characters are all based on historical figures – including novelists, alleged fraudsters, freed slaves – who lived in Smith’s own London neighbourhood of Kilburn. But the novel is as international as it is local and it addresses issues of politics and identity that make The Fraud feel as much about today as about the past.