In Smith’s new novel, Swing Time, we meet two girls who dream of being dancers—but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe, or makes a person truly free. It’s a close but complicated childhood friendship that ends abruptly in their early twenties, never to be revisited, but never quite forgotten, either.

Moving from Northwest London to West Africa, Swing Time is a deeply human story about friendship and music and stubborn roots, about how we are shaped by these things and how we can survive them.

Smith is the multi award-winning author of White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, Changing My Mind, and NW. In conversation with Michele Norris, curator of The Race Card Project and former NPR host. Book signing to follow.