Belonging in the Postcode: Second-Generation Identity in Zadie Smith's NW
Abstract
Zaide Smith, a prominent contemporary British writer, centers the complexities of immigration and urban life in her fiction. Her acclaimed novel NW specifically examines the lived experience of second-generation immigrants in multicultural Britain, offering a nuanced critique of contemporary urban society. Moving beyond traditional frameworks of diaspora studies, this paper explores the profound spatial dimensions of second-generation immigrant identity in NW. By establishing the concept of "postcode belonging", this paper argues that local urban space functions simultaneously as a comforting emotional homeland and as a rigid socioeconomic boundary for Smith's characters. Through textual close reading, the paper investigates the protagonists' traumatic process of self-formation, paying particular attention to the psychological costs of social mobility and the politics of racialised respectability. It further suggests that Smith's fragmented narrative structure formally registers the disjointed and unstable experience of belonging in the contemporary metropolis. Ultimately, NW challenges the linear narrative of immigrant success by revealing postcolonial identity as ongoing, precarious, and spatial mediated struggle.
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