Nikyatu Jusu
Zadie Smith "On Writing NW"
Anyway, I think we should be a bit wary of labelling certain techniques ‘experimental’ as if it’s just a set of tools one picks up to lend whatever you’re writing a trace of hipster cool… it’s like those superstores of ‘alternative’ hipster taste; American Outfitters and so on… I hate that idea. Everything I do is an attempt to get close to the real, as I experience it, and the closer you get to the reality of experience the more bizarre it SHOULD look on the page and sound in the mouth because our real experience doesn’t come packaged in a neat three act structure. For me, Joyce is the ultimate realist because he is trying to convey how experience really feels. And he found it to be so idiosyncratic he needed to invent a new language for it. All I was trying to do in NW was tell fewer lies then last time, and it came out the way it came out.
-Zadie Smith