According to FishbowlNY, author Zadie Smith has no plans for a new novel until after January 2010, when she releases Fail Better, a collection that “we are lead to believe will be some sort of collection of the academic-esque lectures she’s been giving over that last few years.”
One of those “academic-esque lectures” is included in the video at the top of this post. Last week novelist Smith delivered the Robert Silvers lecture in honor of the founder of The New York Review of Books.
Entitled “Speaking in Tongues,” the lecture pondered Barack Obama, writing, and identity, asking these questions: “What does it mean when we speak in different ways to different people? Is it a sign of duplicity or the mark of a complex sensibility?”