Zadie Smith

I mean, it's still a period like for my mother when she first arrived.

I mean, when they married, they went on honeymoon.

They couldn't get a room together in Paris.

You would try and get a room in England.

And, you know, when you turn up at the door, they're like, oh, no, sorry, I was wrong about that.

Yeah, my father was white.

So you're kind of strange and you feel strange.

And I think for me, TV...

It was like a clue, like what is going on?

And also I used to play like a lot of people of my generation, you know, spot the black person.

I was watching TV to try and find us anywhere and always completely thrilled to find anybody.

So that also involved a lot of, you know, old movies, a lot of American television.

It was just a way of situating myself in the world, I think.

some of it's painful now I was reading someone a few days ago talking about the Cosby show which of course is now forever stained but for me sitting in Wilsdon watching this

They seemed to be rich, like rich black people in a big house somewhere.

I didn't know where it was even.

And he was a doctor, was he?

That was all fascinating to me.

I'd never seen anything like it.

I had all kinds of crazy ideas about America as a consequence, as you can imagine.