First.Edition: The Embassy of Cambodia

by Zadie Smith

A possibly scandalous admission needs to be made up front: this short story is the first piece of writing by Zadie Smith that I have ever read.

The reasons for such sustained avoidance are not uncommon amongst former booksellers of my generation, who all heard the same gossip from the same sales reps, and who all read the same trade reports of ungracious behaviour from the author surrounding On Beauty (2005), where, in March of that year, Smith was quoted to have said “Oh, yeah, March; that’s the month when I never win the Orange Prize.” which sounds more than a little bit entitled. Plus, more personally, I was friends with someone who had known Sadie at university - and also the family she had so mercilessly picked apart in her first book White Teeth (2000). Again, the stories I heard did not entice me to become a Zadie Smith reader. But then, you should hear the things I was told about Neil Gaiman and David Walliams. Oh: by now, you have.