Location: Temple Emanu-El
Acclaimed author Zadie Smith returns with The Fraud, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the Tichborne trial, a legal cause célèbre that captivated Victorian England. When Sir Roger Tichborne, a lower-class butcher from Australia, claims to be the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title, deciding what is real proves a complicated task.
Andrew Bogle, who grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica, finds himself a star witness in this celebrated case of imposture, and knows his future depends on telling the right story. The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity, and the mystery of “other people.”
Zadie Smith is the award-winning author of White Teeth, NW, On Beauty, and Swing Time, as well as of a novella, three collections of essays, and a short story collection. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a regular contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books.