> Skip to content
Play sample
  • Published: 3 July 2006
  • ISBN: 9780141019451
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 464
  • RRP: $22.99

On Beauty




The bestselling, Booker shortlisted novel by one of Britain's greatest living novelists, now a Penguin Essential

Set in New England mainly and London partly, On Beauty concerns a pair of feuding families - the Belseys and the Kipps - and a clutch of doomed affairs. It puts low morals among high ideals and asks some searching questions about what life does to love. For the Belseys and the Kipps, the
confusions - both personal and political - of our uncertain age are about to be brought close to home: right to the heart of family.

  • Published: 3 July 2006
  • ISBN: 9780141019451
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 464
  • RRP: $22.99

About the author

Zadie Smith

Zadie Smith was born in north-west London in 1975. She is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time, as well as The Embassy of Cambodia and the essay collection, Changing My Mind. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People, is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and has twice been listed as one of Granta's 20 Best Young British Novelists. She has won the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Guardian First Book Award among many others, and been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

Zadie Smith is currently a tenured professor of fiction at New York University and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.

Also by Zadie Smith

See all

Praise for On Beauty

The tale of a mixed-race British American family in conflict with another family of opposing sensibilities. As with all Smith's work, it's smart, funny and a masterclass in the complexities of identity

Luan Goldie, Guardian

Discover more

Article
An ultimate guide to Zadie Smith

Learn about Zadie Smith's incredible books. You're sure to find a new favourite on this list!