The Fraud - Zadie Smith

The chronicler of contemporary London, acclaimed and bestselling author Zadie Smith, returns with her first historical novel, Kilburn, 1873. The ‘Tichborne Trial’ has captivated the widowed Scottish housekeeper Mrs Eliza Touchet and all of England. Readers are at odds over whether the defendant is who he claims to be - or an imposter.

Mrs Touchet is a woman of many interests—literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her novelist cousin and his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects England of being a land of façades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, finds himself the star witness, his future depending on telling the right story. Growing up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, he knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realise.

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about how, in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what’s true can prove a complicated task.

Type: Paperback

Condition: Great condition, general wear and tear

Marks/ Annotations: None

Page count: 454 pages