We Are a Human Race: Zadie Smith’s Grand Union; An Expository Reading

Abstract

This essay gives expository reading to four stories in Zadie Smith’s Grand Union, published in October 2019. In doing so, this paper examines the various facets of her identity elaborated in several narratives, written in her distinctive daring and earnest style as she collates numerous issues and perspectives into a small space. She thus issues a challenge to her readers regarding the consideration of how a human being is understood; there are hardly any prerequisites or typology, but Smith rather presents a series of the perspectives of her characters intermingled in the course of what they are: nothing special, just many of many. This essay finds Du Bois’ view inculcating and uses his argument that has a penchant for sharpening the astray points of black people. This essay to some degree takes his idea as pivotal in reading this novel, as in a sense, Du Bois and Zadie Smith share a ground rule that all living beings claim equally valued attributes to each other.