About
In Conversation with James Conor Patterson
We are thrilled to welcome award-winning duo Nick Laird and Zadie Smith to The Helicon stage. Born in County Tyrone in 1975, Nick Laird is an award-winning poet, novelist and professor at Queen's University Belfast. Zadie Smith, born in north-west London, is an internationally acclaimed novelist, essayist and playwright. Together they co-author the popular Weirdo children's book series, combining literary excellence with imaginative storytelling. Expect a compelling evening as Zadie Smith and Nick Laird read from and discuss their literary work.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Zadie Smith is the author of the novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW, Swing Time and The Fraud; as well as a novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; four collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free, Intimations and Dead and Alive; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and a play, The Wife of Willesden. She is also the editor of The Book of Other People. Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.
Nick Laird was born in County Tyrone in 1975. A poet, novelist, screenwriter, critic and former litigator, his awards include the Betty Trask Prize, the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize, a Forward prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. For many years he taught at universities in America including Columbia, Princeton and NYU, and is now the Seamus Heaney Professor of Poetry at Queens' University, Belfast. His sixth poetry collection, Beast Mode, is forthcoming from Faber, and Weirdo in Winter, the third installment of his children's books co-written with Zadie Smith, is forthcoming from Penguin.
