Zadie Smith tells Dua Lipa inequality has made culture clashes feel ‘existential’

The novelist Zadie Smith has stated that inequality has made culture clashes feel "existential," emphasizing that it has become "natural to look to your left and think ‘who the fuck are you?’" This remark came during an interview with Dua Lipa at the Southbank Centre’s London literature festival, where Smith discussed the decline of Britain’s "incredible, historic" welfare system and its impact on societal divisions.

In the conversation, Smith reflected on her debut novel, White Teeth, published in 2000, which is set primarily in the last three decades of the 20th century. When Lipa inquired about the changing attitudes towards multiculturalism since the 80s and 90s, Smith pointed to rising inequality and unemployment as significant factors.

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"When you’re living in basically decent housing, when you hurt yourself you know you can go to hospital and be treated just like the rich kid down the road – then the differences [with others] become interesting, sometimes annoying, but not existential," Smith explained. "Now, they’re existential. When you can’t get a job, when there’s no housing, when your schools are falling apart, when the hospitals are falling apart – now it feels existential."