Zadie Smith and Jeffrey Eugenides on Writing | The New Yorker Festival

The authors Zadie Smith and Jeffrey Eugenides discuss their personal approaches to writing novels.
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Zadie Smith and Jeffrey Eugenides on Writing | The New Yorker Festival
Producer: The New Yorker

[@unholymetaphor]

I am Bengali and the accuracy of which she writes of Bengali's and Bengali life is uncanny! She was spot on-both these writers do so many amazing things in the pages of their books!

[@MsLoila]

yeah exactly her multicultural depictions are very amusing .

[@errrrm78]

Close to finishing ‘White Teeth’ and I must say Zadie is a great writer. To think she was in her last year of university when she wrote it.

[@user-qb3jg8ep9t]

Where can I watch the whole discussion?

[@user-dj8gt6ik7c]

Zadie has such a cool style. Those shoes though.

[@user-zo4ig4xx5n]

The shoes are the best part of the outfit in my opinion. That and the brains of course.

[@EzeICE]

I can't stop looking at Zadie's closing her eyes constantly. Maybe she has sensitivity to light.

[@peterpan-sf2ic]

Generally speaking, closing your eyes while speaking is a way of going inside and connecting with your feelings, whether they are physical things or emotional. It is a 'posture' or gesture common in philosophers. ... Yet others will not touch bases with their emotions at all - never look down or close their eyes. (google it)

[@finnyforever08]

Wow - with Arundhati Roy this interview would be over in 1 minute. She would insist her story simply 'appears on the page'.

[@bettyames5527]

A Frica and and Oprah iinterviiew

[@yeshs4399]

I mean, I won't be surprised. She's one of the legendary writers in the world, even with most 2 fiction books out.

[@michaelwilliamson2255]

I love her.

[@RutzMac]

He looks like Shakespeare. . .

[@gk411]

Z Smith is brilliant and beautiful 📚 Billie holiday with a 🖋 for a 🎤 ✌️ 🌸 ♥ 🇮🇪

[@ecaepevolhturt]

6:09 - Probably not a fan of "The Bell Jar" then.

[@bigphilly7345]

Interesting how they write so few words per day.

[@DeusExMachina50]

Quality over quantity.

[@activeone]

@@DeusExMachina50 Tell that to Knausgaard

[@cxa24]

Stay in New york

[@cxa24]

Inescapable creeps that were caught

[@HomeAtLast501]

What is this "word limit" crap? This isn't the 1700s. I can't imagine sitting down and writing a certain number of words of finished copy. It's a ridiculous notion. It's a constant process of blocking out ideas for a scene, then transforming the ideas into some sort of narrative flow, then formalizing it, then editing over and over and over again, then jumping to another section that's already written and editing it. I don't believe these people are sitting down for 3 hours and writing pure copy. It's absurd.

[@HomeAtLast501]

@Gwen They didn't say that. I usually write fragments and notes and bullet points first on a given chapter. A piece of finished dialogue next to a paragraph-long description of what I am thinking I want to say next, next to a note about a metaphor I just thought of to use in my description of how a character moved. A first sketch of a draft describing an exchange. You would never count that and say "I wrote x number of words today". These people are phonies, and you aren't very perceptive.

[@gk411]

Z Smith is brilliant and beautiful 📚 Billie holiday with a 🖋 for a 🎤 ✌️ 🌸 ♥ 🇮🇪