Durante la semana pasada me encontré tres piezas sobre Zadie Smith. The House That Hova Built. Una entrevista que realiza Zadie a Jay-Z. Interview: Zadie Smith - Granta Magazine. En esta entrevista hay un segmento delicioso que distingue el oficio del ensayista y aquel del novelista: Whenever I write a novel I’m reminded of the essential hubris of criticism. When I write criticism I’m in such a protected position: here are my arguments, here are my blessed opinions, here is my textual evidence, here my rhetorical flourish. One feels very pleased with oneself. Fiction has none of these defences. You are just a fool with a keyboard. It’s much harder. More frightening. At the same time, I work really hard on my novels, so when I return to reviewing I expect the novels I read to really have something going on. Not perfection, because I know that’s impossible and not really even desirable – but some kind of genuine urgency. Some risk has to have been taken. Something in the book has to be