It's 1930, and Secrets tells the tale of one girl caught in family mystery, a struggle against cruelty, and a quest for love . . .

With characters it is impossible not to care about, this is storytelling at its very best

An emotional and moving epic you won't forget in a hurry

Combines dazzling erudition with assured narrative skills to offer glimpses of some of history's darkest corners, and stark and timely challenges to the very notions of civilisation and progress

A dazzling hall of mirrors... Ferociously ambitious... Illumined by a fizzing passion for the recondite

An astonishingly assured début, funny and serious ... I was delighted

She is . . . a George Eliot of multi-culturalism

[Zadie Smith] is one of the prominent voices of her generation

Britain's finest young author

[Zadie Smith] packs more intelligence, humour and sheer energy into any given scene than anyone else of her generation

[White Teeth] established a model for how to make sense-and art-out of the complexity, diversity and pluck that have defined the beginning of this century

The first publishing sensation of the millennium

White Teeth reflects a new generation

[Zadie Smith] is one of the prominent voices of her generation