The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/colonialism/)
“A voice like Ladan’s, I think, tends to be a bit hidden by … other voices,” said Prof. Cristina Correa, English, in a phone interview with The Sun. “I think what she’s doing on the page is very powerful, especially coming from a black woman in this country right now, an African immigrant voice, a Muslim voice, and also her attention to include visuals in her work.”
Author Ousseina Alidou has written several books on women in the Sahelian region of Africa and their political and intellectual contributions to their culture.
As a longtime Zadie Smith fan, I began my journey into Swing Time, her latest novel, with a certain degree of expectation. I anticipated to be entertained, that there would be points where I laughed and, as a testament to the complexity of her writing, for there also to be moments in the book when I cried. I did not however, expect to feel intense irritation, almost to the point of hatred. The plot of Swing Time is effectively split into two. The first revolves around the childhood friendship of two girls tied together by their similar skin tones and mutual love of dance.