Fresh Air – Zadie Smith Asks, What Makes Us Feel Alive?

Host: Terry Gross
Guest: Zadie Smith
Date: December 15, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Terry Gross sits down with celebrated novelist and essayist Zadie Smith to discuss her new essay collection, Dead and Alive. The conversation weaves through themes of aging and generational conflict, language, family, and the search for meaning in a rapidly shifting world. Smith reflects on her experiences as a mixed-race child in London, her parents' extraordinary backgrounds, the impact of television, and the evolving nature of feminism—all with her signature wit, candor, and deep introspection.

Main Themes and Key Insights

1. Aging and the Passage of Time

• Persistent Fascination with Time: Smith remarks that her obsession with time has been a constant, shaped partly by her parents’ 30-year age gap.
  • Quote: “I don't think it's changed that much. I think I'm always interested in time. ... our experience on this Earth.” (04:15)
• Parent's Age Gap and Its Impact: Growing up with parents at such different life stages “was like space and time travel in my house.” (06:07)
• Generational Conflict: She critiques “vicious” generational discourse, noting how structural differences, particularly economics, fuel today’s frustrations between young and old.
  • Quote: “If you are young and feel like you cannot rent an apartment ... why would you not look above you and say, you know, f you. That makes complete sense to me.” (08:17)
• On Becoming Older: Smith discusses how quickly youth fades, and how every young person eventually joins the ranks of the old:
  • Quote: “...you become 50 in the blink of an eye. ...a certain amount of care around the issue of age should be practiced on both sides.” (09:17)

2. Language as Culture and Identity

• Smith delights in the constant evolution of slang, even as she becomes embarrassed by using “antique” expressions:
  • Quote: “A Lot of British people of my generation .. have the habit of saying tune ... mortifying to my children.” (10:58)
• She notes the creativity of “street level language” and laments that she can’t authentically write contemporary slang for youth.

3. Family, Upbringing, and Race

• Television as a Window and Anchor: Smith reflects on her TV-immersed childhood, seeing it as both a clue to her social identity and a way to find herself represented.
  • Quote: “I used to play, like a lot of people ... spot the black person. ...just a way of situating myself in the world.” (15:03)
• Mother’s Immigration and Childhood Hardship: Smith narrates her Jamaican mother’s story of being left behind by her own mother, her determination to get an education in England despite structural racism and colorism.
• Confidence Despite Hardship: Smith admires her mother's resilience and confidence in the face of both racism and colorism:
  • Quote: “My mother, ... always considered herself to be a tremendous person. She thinks she's beautiful. She thinks she's brilliant. ...She kind of walked in the world with a lot of confidence.” (32:05)

4. Media, Ritual, and the Search for Meaning

• Smith meditates on how TV replaced communal rituals and shaped expectations for “shapely” narratives in life, questioning whether media over-mediation makes life more or less meaningful (20:50).
• Her view on faith, community, and finding meaning evolved with age:
  • Quote: “...now that thought is so repulsive to me, that vulnerability and need are to be treated with contempt. ...I did think.” (21:32)

5. Generational and Feminist Disagreements

• On Feminist Splits: Smith sees value in recognizing that every generation must work out its own feminist principles and acknowledges the perennial mother-daughter opposition.
• False Consciousness: She compares her generation's skepticism about “full consent” in objectification with younger feminists’ rejection of “false consciousness.”
  • Quote: “I believe in false consciousness because I experience it as a human being. ...sometimes I say I really like this and what I really mean is I don't like this at all ...” (27:02)
• Relational Nature of Beliefs: She cautions against enforcing her views, emphasizing support and recognizing different upbringings.

6. Mortality, Vulnerability, and the Body

• At 50, Smith notes her own vulnerability (recent eye surgery, aging body), reckoning with decrepitude and changing attitudes toward mortality. (35:42)
• “I always love that line of Salman Rushdie. He says our lives teach us who we are.” (36:06)
• Less afraid of death now than she was as a young woman; new fears are for her children's well-being, not her own.

7. Depression, Accident, and Melancholy

• Smith discusses surviving a significant accident (falling out a window as a teenager), clarifying it was not a suicide attempt, though people believed so due to her melancholy.
• She speaks honestly about the permanence of melancholy in her life and how writing provides catharsis.
  • “I find writing pretty cathartic. I don't say it ends melancholy or depression, but it does articulate things that otherwise would just kind of sit there and bother me.” (40:37)

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• On her first novel and that former self:
  “I'm always incredibly grateful for the girl who wrote that book because she enabled my entire life.” (03:48)
• On generational resentment:
  “Generational discourse is nonsense, really. ... what amused me about it recently is how vicious it's become. ... if you are young and feel like you cannot rent an apartment, ... why would you not look above you and say, you know, f you?” (07:23, 08:17)
• On the transformation of language:
  “The creativity of street level language is something that I just find endlessly thrilling... But I could never write the language my kids bring home.” (11:52)
• On the shape of lives and media:
  “We thought our lives would be reasonably paced and tell a story full of meaning. Instead, it's just been one thing after another ... there are no neat conclusions except the certainty of death.” (Essay excerpt, 19:17)
• On aging:
  “That's the one thing that I know now that I didn't know at 20 is that you become 50 in the blink of an eye.” (09:17)
• On false consciousness and feminism:
  “I do believe in false consciousness because I experience it as a human being. ... sometimes I say I really like this and what I really mean is I don't like this at all and I'm really unhappy.” (27:02)
• On her mother’s confidence:
  “Somehow she was not destroyed by these things. And she kind of walked in the world with a lot of confidence.” (33:07)
• On writing and melancholy:
  “I find writing pretty cathartic. I don't say it ends melancholy or depression, but it does articulate things that otherwise would just kind of sit there and bother me.” (40:37)

Segment Timestamps

• Intro / Context & Zadie Smith’s new essays: 00:15 – 03:47
• On Age, Time, and Generational Change: 03:59 – 09:57
• Language and Slang: 09:57 – 12:19
• Cultural Change; Family and Upbringing (TV, race): 12:19 – 17:10
• Reading from “Some Notes on Mediated Time” and media’s impact: 17:10 – 22:30
• Feminism and Generational Splits: 24:13 – 29:53
• Parents’ Backgrounds, Race, and Resilience: 29:53 – 34:19
• Aging, Mortality, and Physical Vulnerability: 35:27 – 38:12
• Accident, Depression, and Writing’s Role: 39:19 – 41:13

Memorable Moments

• Smith's Reading from Her Essay (17:10–20:50): Vividly encapsulates the confusing flow of adult life, the loss of narrative “shapeliness,” and the impact of mediation on personal time.
• Her mother's educational journey and defiant self-confidence. (30:31–33:07)
• Smith’s candid reflection on melancholy and creative survival. (40:37)

Tone and Style

Throughout, Zadie Smith is self-deprecating, sharp, empathetic, and dryly funny. She brings a blend of intellectual curiosity and humility, shifting seamlessly from the personal to the universal, from the “big questions” of time and death to the hilarity of embarrassing her children with outdated slang.

For Listeners

This episode is a rich meditation on time, identity, and belonging—spanning the personal, the familial, and the societal. It’s especially resonant for those reflecting on their own passage through generations, the pressure for “shapely” narratives, and the complicated inheritance of language, culture, and familial values.

Zadie Smith’s new essay collection, Dead and Alive, is available now.