‘In Drag’: Performativity and Authenticity in Zadie Smith’s "NW"

Beatriz Pérez Zapata

doi:10.2478/ipcj-2014-0006

Authors

Beatriz Pérez Zapata University of Zaragoza

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2478/ipcj-2014-0006

Keywords:

authenticity, performativity, neocolonialism, intersectionality

Abstract

Zadie Smith’s latest novel, NW, presents a multiverse in chich multiplicity is driven into homogeneization by the forces of those dominant discourses that attempt to suppress the category of the “Other.” This paper focuses on the development of the two female protagonists. Their opposing attitudes towards motherhood, together with their confrontation with their origins, bring to the fore the performativity found in the discourses of gender, sexuality, class, and race. Thus, this paper will explore authenticity and performativity in a contemporary context, where patriarchal and neocolonial discourses still apply.

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Author Biography

Beatriz Pérez Zapata, University of Zaragoza

Beatriz Pérez Zapata is a pre-doctoral researcher from the Department of English and German Philology at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), where she has also worked as an assistant lecturer. She is part of the research group “Trauma and Beyond: The Rhetoric and Politics of Suffering in Contemporary Narrative in English” (Ref. FFI2012-32719). Her thesis analyses the work of Zadie Smith from a transdisciplinary perspective. Her main research interests are postcolonial literature, memory, trauma, class, gender, race, and identity.

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