Zadie Smith (London, 1975) comes down a bit hastily to the lobby of the hotel where she is staying in Barcelona. He has just returned from his daily swimming session, which he did today at the beach. “I’m hungry,” she says. The interview therefore takes place around a few eggs and toast. He is in the city for the Thought Biennale, during which he gave two talks focused on truth and its manipulation at the CCCB.
Smith speaks with passion and determination about all the nuances of what is true, one of the themes he addresses in his new novel, The imposture (Salamander, 2024). The book takes real characters as protagonists, such as the writer William Ainsworth or his cousin Eliza, fascinated by the also real case of Roger Tichborne, a nobleman who disappeared and reappeared decades later in the form of a man who claimed his name . and fortune. A book in which the real and the invented intertwine, calling into question the morals and privileges of Victorian society that so fascinates Smith.
The book addresses various universal questions such as truth, identity or roots. Why did you decide to travel to the Victorian era to address these questions?
For readers, the difference between past and present or between first and third person is very significant. But not for writers. We just write about what interests us. And this period interests me. I’m sure I’ll write a lot of contemporary novels, but now I’m more interested in how people thought in the past. Victorians tend to be caricatures and I wanted to give them a more complex dimension.
She does this, among other things, through the figure of slavery, which highlights the contradictions of society and the internal struggle of certain women who demanded abolition and reproached themselves for their own privileges.
The interesting thing about privilege is that everyone is privileged over another person. There is always someone who is worse off than you. But if you’re incapacitated by your own privilege, you’ll never get anything done. Sitting down and bemoaning your privilege to someone who works on a plantation is not useful speech.
This is why I admire Eliza [una de las personajes protagonistas]. She acts simply, even if she is poor. But compared to the other characters, she is privileged. And that’s no reason to let yourself be overwhelmed. This doesn’t make sense. It’s not even a political thought, it’s narcissistic.
Perhaps comparing yourself to another and being aware of your own privilege has something political because a certain empathy comes into play…
Yes, but politics disappears when it makes you incapable of action. If you’re stuck in a loop trying to decide who’s more or less lucky and that’s all you can think about, you won’t get far.
Eliza’s case is curious, because her privileges do not prevent her from fighting for the abolition of slavery, but they prevent her from fighting for the rights of her own class. There is one of his very meaningful sentences: “Why is it easier to think about my shoes needing new soles than about my freedom?”
This is the most practical thing for her. You do not have the rights that are now guaranteed to us, such as power over your children, property, divorce or the exercise of certain professions. So, for her, it is easier and less painful to focus on the rights of others.
If just one perfect political action is accepted to end injustice, we will have to wait a long time
This is why he is an abolitionist in his novel. Eliza is a real character, was she really an anti-slavery fighter?
No, it’s fiction, as far as I know, but it suits me. Most abolitionists were women. White women over time. They wrote letters to the government, encouraged the sugar boycott, gave dramatic speeches… These are the same people who, 15 years later, fought for women’s votes. English women managed to vote by putting Victorian machismo in their favor. The men believed they were innocent angels and Boom! They were heroines.
But were they really anti-racist? In the book, she describes how these white women spoke about the paternalism and exoticism of black slaves.
Well, if you only accept one perfect political action to end injustice, you will have to wait a long time. We all have contradictions. In a university course where I was explaining the social situation in the Victorian era, the students did not understand why people did not take to the streets to end exploitation. Well, it was the same day that this textile factory in Bangladesh was burned down. And everyone was wearing cheap Zara clothes.
There are two other cross-cutting themes in the novel, truth and identity, which we find in the case of Roger Tichborne. [el juicio levantó pasiones entre la población después de que un hombre asegurara ser el noble desaparecido. A pesar de que el tribunal decretara que era un impostor, recabó un fortísimo apoyo popular]. Why did you choose this case?
Because it shows that our social existence is not mathematical. We are not two plus two equals four. The truth is habitable and there is never just one. Absolute truth does not exist in human relationships. This is not possible. This also happens in literature. There are always interpretations that can be given to subjectivity. Moby Dick is not a man chasing a whale, it is many other things, different for everyone. And among all these things, there is a lot of gray.
As in social relations, there are more or less cautious, intelligent, sensitive or narcissistic interpretations in literature. Then, obviously, there are the misleading and obscene interpretations. And the Tichborne case is interesting for understanding how something becomes true which, in fact, is not true at all.
Although he was later proven to be a fraudster, the imposter was living under the name Tichborne and was technically him as long as people believed him.
Exactly! For many people, this was true on an emotional level and on a level of justice. Sometimes people who think too much about politics and pride themselves on being ultra-rational have difficulty understanding such social moments. But novelists don’t work like that. Or we shouldn’t. Being a novelist requires psychological characteristics, but I think many writers (and I’m sure I’ve made this mistake in the past) think that our way of thinking is representational. It’s not like that at all.
I write to understand or reflect how I feel in relation to how others feel. In fact, I try to understand people.
What is he referring to?
A lot of people want roots, they want to really belong to something, they believe in nation states, they want to have an identity. And that’s the truth for many people, and many novelists write to satisfy those desires. But I don’t feel that way.
Why do you write?
To understand or reflect how I feel compared to how others feel. In fact, I try to understand people.
Have you reached it?
I don’t know. I think I understand these needs, but I don’t want to form a group or share a thought with many people. I’m not afraid of loneliness because I don’t feel alone when I’m with myself. And I think that this is the great bias of the history of literature. All writers have written thinking that everyone feels this way and that’s not true.
In literature, the ego plays an important role and all writers believe they have a unique view of these shared truths. Do you think you are guilty of ego?
When I was young, maybe. But I think that has left me over the years. Mainly because I had children. The last thing I do every day is what I want to do.
Reflections on literature carry weight in the book. One of its protagonists is the novelist William Ainsworth (1805-1832). Why him?
I am interested in the relationship of writers with the world. And he was my neighbor. I often walk by his grave and pass his house every day. I thought it would be fun to resurrect this writer who was so popular and successful and now totally forgotten.
Oh, I’m sure they’ll forget me. And I don’t care at all ’cause I’ll be dead
It’s a fear that every writer has. Does resurrecting him mean you have this fear too?
Oh, I’m sure that will happen to me. And I don’t worry at all because I’ll be dead.
Let’s get back to the truth. I found it interesting that a novel that thinks so much about what is true, invents dialogues, thoughts and actions of people who existed but who did not say, think or do what you write. Did you have some kind of contradiction?
No way! It was delicious. Sometimes I go to their graves and look at them and say, “I don’t know if you were like that, but I think so.” So… here we are. I suspect what they looked like, and they are suspicions based on little pieced together certainties. For example, I know that Eliza was tall or that she had an affair with William because it’s mentioned in the letters I’ve read. Obviously, I don’t know some things about his behavior, his thoughts or his choices. But she is dead, after all. What he has is a second life in fiction, and I’m glad he has it. It’s nice, isn’t it?
We won’t all have one.
Yes, I think that’s a good thing… I hope you don’t mind.
In some way, does this worry you?
No, but it’s true that even after finishing the book, I continued to Google his name in case I found something else. I never found anything, but hello, after six months, I thought about putting his middle name too. And that made the difference, because I saw that he was making an album in which there were letters and portraits. I wanted it because I didn’t see what it looked like, but it was sold at auction to a man. I asked him to show it to me, but he never responded. There’s a portrait of him and a damn man who has it! It was very painful, but maybe that’s how it should be. I’ll just imagine it.
