Emplaced sounding: voice, identity and place in Zadie Smith’s NW

Abstract

Through a close reading of Zadie Smith’s portrayal of the character Keisha/Natalie’s voice and relationship to voice in the novel NW, this article considers how people’s speaking, sounding voices are both emplaced (coming from, made by place) and are key place-making acts. This paper argues for how analysing sound in literature might serve sonic geographic interest in the ‘whole’ voice, with all sound’s representational and more-than representational elements. Through its fictional and poetic expressivity the literary offers propositional perspectives on experiences of sound and its material and affectual role in our world making. From this departure point, the paper proceeds to consider the entangled issues of place and identity politics in NW, motivating that a reading or ‘listening’ in terms of voice might offer valuable insights into these concerns. Attending to three moments in NW centred around the character Keisha/Natalie, the paper argues for how human’s speaking voices might enact and contain the complex difficulties in the co-construction of place and personal identity.