Quote by Zadie Smith: “It's a long life, and you'll be many people in it.”

We put enormous pressure on ourselves to have a consistent identity and fixed goals — but people change dramatically over a lifetime. The person you are at twenty is not who you'll be at forty. This is reassuring: you don't have to be one thing forever. Change is the norm, not a failure.

Smith published Feel Free in 2018, a wide-ranging essay collection addressing everything from Brexit to Joni Mitchell to social media. It appeared as British society was fracturing along cultural and generational lines, and questions about identity and belonging had taken on a new urgency.

British novelist and essayist whose debut White Teeth won four major literary awards and made her one of the most celebrated writers of her generation. Her essay collections, including Feel Free, establish her as a leading public intellectual on culture, race, and literature.