NW Themes

Although many of their stories begin at the same place—the Caldwell council estate (public housing, typically with low-income residents) and later, a school called Brayton—the characters of Zadie Smith’s NW go on to lead very different lives. The character who goes through the biggest change is Keisha, who literally changes her name to Natalie when she is a teenager. Perhaps not coincidentally, the first time in the novel that Natalie uses her new name…

The geography of London plays a large role in Zadie Smith’s NW, with NW being the postcode for Northwest London, where much of the novel takes place. The novel is also full of street names and other landmarks, many of which inspire the names of titles or chapters in the book. In some ways, the scope of the novel is limited, focusing on a single part of a single city, but this small area…

NW begins with Leah unexpectedly meeting up with Shar, a woman in a headscarf who is begging for money and claims that she used to go to Brayton, the school Leah attended. Part of Leah suspects that Shar might be lying to her about the reasons why she needs money, and yet she chooses to give the money to Shar anyway. The significance of her choice reverberates throughout the rest of the novel. Michel…