Zadie Smith in Conversation with Madeleine Thien

If you don’t have a ticket: There will be a standby line at the venue set up two hours prior to the event, where empty seats will be assigned on a first-come, first-serve basis, at showtime, according to availability.

Presented in partnership with UBC School of Creative Writing and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.

Zadie Smith, widely recognized as one of the finest and most influential authors writing in English today, joins the Vancouver Writers Fest for an evening of unforgettable storytelling. This event is a celebration not only of Smith’s latest novel, The Fraud, but also of you: our treasured community.   

Smith’s blockbuster debut novel, White Teeth, earned her comparisons to writers from Charles Dickens to Jane Austen to Salman Rushdie. It won multiple awards and was included in TIME’s All-TIME List of the 100 Best Novels (1923–2005). Her acclaimed follow-ups include On Beauty, NW, and Swing Time.

Booklist has named The Fraud “her most commanding novel to date.” Set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, all fused into “a triumph of historical fiction.” (Publishers Weekly)

Smith speaks with her internationally-renowned Canadian contemporary, Madeleine Thien, author of the multi-award-winning novel Do Not Say We Have Nothing.

Though we consider all of our Special Events exceptional, this one is truly momentous for us: we are making this event free to all, as a gift to the local community that has supported us so generously and steadfastly through these turbulent pandemic years. VWF members will receive first access to tickets, before they become available to everyone—whether this is your hundredth time attending an event with us, or your very first.  

Books will be for sale at the event courtesy of Book Warehouse, a division of Black Bond Books.