Like a new van Zadie Smith determines the mood of literary autumn, we are entering a hot autumn. His sixth novel is a killer opening move, and proof that Smith’s formula for success is far from showing any signs of breaking. There are many reasons to like this English-Jamaican writer, but we especially admire his acrobatic abilities. How else do you explain the impossible spread he has maintained for over twenty years? The graceful split between staying true to your own voice and fearlessly seeking new horizons.

In ‘Charlatan’ this terra incognita is the domain of historical fiction. In July, Smith admitted in an essay in The New Yorker that he had long avoided, even loathed, the “old fashioned, uninnovative” genre. Until they did, thanks in part to the brilliant ‘Wolf Hall’ trilogy Hilary Mantel, realizing that his humiliation was unjustified. And so he began the great work of his journey of discovery. Camp in old archives, collect and sift through sources, and seek your own voice within the historical genre – literally and figuratively.

But her new novel begins in familiar territory: Willesden, the London district where she grew up, and which previously served as the setting for ‘White Teeth’ and ‘Swing Time’. In ‘Charlatan’ his old hometown is nothing more than a picturesque hamlet in the shadow of the 19th century metropolis of London. The widow Eliza Touchet lived there with her cousin William Ainsworth, a contemporary of letters Charles Dickens which has since – it is true – faded into obscurity. It takes readers a while to get used to the sullen Eliza, but Smith gives her main character at least as intelligent as the (male) adventurous writer who inhabits her cousin’s house.

Eliza becomes captivated by the case-Tichborne, one of the most famous court cases in British history, in which a lowly butcher claimed he was actually Roger Tichborne, then the eighth richest man in England. His story sowed discord among the people. The lower classes in particular were firmly on the side of these misunderstood ‘impostors’. It quickly became clear why Smith was fascinated too. After all, he is a key witness in the case Andrew Bogle, a black former slave who claims to recognize his former master as a fraud. Surprisingly, Bogle was also embraced by the British underclass as a folk hero and proclaimer of the One True Truth. In a novel filled by heavyweight writers such as Dickens and William Thackeray Smith chose two unlikely protagonists: a Scottish widow and a black slave who ends up in a pauper’s grave. Smith skillfully navigates between the philosophical conversations and unspoken feelings of the Ainsworth-Touchet house and Bogle’s incredibly physical and macabre slave past (“The world is sinking into madness. It covers everything, like the weather”). Skilled, but also at a very poor and erratic speed. Sometimes it’s hard not to get lost between the many time jumps, narrative voiceovers, and sudden interruptions. Fortunately, Smith imparts the fervent passion that holds everything together, the fervent and unstoppable passion for justice and compassion that characterizes all of his work. In his first historical novel, he also masterfully shows how the genre invites you to look critically at the present. ‘One of the complications of managing a downturn is the onset of nostalgia’ nicely sums up the political malaise in the UK (and in Europe too) at the moment. Although the very human and hopeful tone of ‘Imposter’ deserves special respect. For Smith, every human being is “bottomless”. For now, the same goes for his writing talent.