White Teeth (2000), Zadie Smith's acclaimed debut novel, is a comic epic about multicultural London. The story follows two unlikely friends: Archie Jones, a hapless Englishman, and Samad Iqbal, a Bangladeshi Muslim waiter, whose friendship began during World War II. Spanning decades and continents, the novel traces the intertwined lives of their families—Archie's marriage to the much younger Jamaican Clara, and Samad's twin sons, one sent to Bangladesh, the other raised in London. Through humor and sharp observation, Smith explores immigration, religious extremism, genetic engineering, and the chaotic collision of cultures, asking what identity truly means in modern Britain.
