by Alessandra Castellazzi
Zadie Smith’s first novel, White Teeth, published in 2000, is about multicultural London, hybrid identities and the power of history. It stages a highly polyphonic cast: the characters speak different varieties of English, ranging from British English to hybridized englishes and slang. The aim of this essay is to analyze the Italian translation of the novel, focusing on the superimposition of languages which is the result of British colonial history.