Grand Union: Stories

Longlisted for the Carnegie Medal! 

A dazzling collection of short fiction


Zadie Smith has established herself as one of the most iconic, critically respected, and popular writers of her generation. In her first short story collection, she combines her power of observation and her inimitable voice to mine the fraught and complex experience of life in the modern world. Interleaving eleven completely new and unpublished stories with some of her best-loved pieces from The New Yorker and elsewhere, Smith presents a dizzyingly rich and varied collection of fiction. Moving exhilaratingly across genres and perspectives, from the historic to the vividly current to the slyly dystopian, Grand Union is a sharply alert and prescient collection about time and place, identity and rebirth, the persistent legacies that haunt our present selves and the uncanny futures that rush up to meet us.

Nothing is off limits, and everything—when captured by Smith’s brilliant gaze—feels fresh and relevant. Perfectly paced and utterly original, Grand Union highlights the wonders Zadie Smith can do.

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Published Oct 6, 2020

256 pages

Average rating: 5.43

21 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

Annie Butkiewicz
Jan 08, 2025
8/10 stars
One word: subsuming. Also, I enjoyed the little apocalyptic escape to Harrisburg in “Escape From New York.” Great storytelling, looking forward to reading The Fraud (now #17 out of 23 holds at the library - what happens when you want to read a NYT top 10 book of the year).

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