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“What’s beautiful about what Zadie Smith has done is she’s made it very contemporary, very alive, very immediate, like we’re watching a character that is from London now. But is still remarkably like the original character in Chaucer’s ‘Wife of Bath.’”

“The dialogue, the writing is so real. Just like [Smith’s] books do, the characters sing off the page.”

A compilation of resources for educators and learners from all contexts to explore the world of twenty-first-century Willesden that Zadie Smith portrays.

In Smith’s The Wife of Willesden…a chorus of voices at the pub chime in as Alvita dishes on men and women, power and deception, sex and desire.

There’s a feeling that British actress Clare Perkins gets when she reads an intriguing role, a “fire” of sorts that makes her want to take part. So when she learned of the character Alvita…Perkins knew it would be “a good character to bring to the stage.”