Abstract: | The article focuses on the manner in which the space of the city is employed in Zadie Smith’s NW so as to reveal not only a cosmopolitan map of contemporary London, but also to draw a map of the journey of the contemporary individual in finding himself/herself. Smith adopts in NW an experimental manner of introducing the contemporary individual in a strongly cartographied space both at the level of the city and at the level of the body of the text. Thus, through the space of North West London, the author speaks about family, social class, (inter-racial, marital) relationships, (complying or not with) gender roles (and dealing with the defiance against such roles), mobility (at the level of the cityscapes and at the level of the mindscapes), community and possibilities (and impossibilities) of belonging. |
