From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.

A Cappella Books proudly welcomes the author to the beautiful new SCADshow theatre in honor of the paperback release of her New York Times bestseller, “The Fraud.” Smith will appear in conversation with Atlanta's own Tayari Jones, award-winning author of "An American Marriage."

Tickets include a signed paperback copy of "The Fraud."

Please note: Although tickets are non-refundable, if you cannot attend, your ticket still entitles you to a signed copy of the book. A Cappella Books will hold your book for one month from the event date. You may pick it up in-store or call us to request shipping.

About the Book

Truth and fiction.
Jamaica and Britain.
Who gets to tell their story?

In her first historical novel, Zadie Smith transports the reader to a Victorian England transfixed by the real-life trial of the Tichborne Claimant, in which a cockney butcher, recently returned from Australia, lays claim to the Tichborne baronetcy, with his former slave Andrew Bogle as the star witness. Watching the proceedings, and with her own story to tell, is Eliza Touchet—cousin, housekeeper, and perhaps more to failing novelist William Harrison Ainsworth.

From literary London to Jamaica’s sugarcane plantations, Zadie Smith weaves an enthralling story linking the rich and the poor, the free and the enslaved, and the comic and the tragic.

About the Author

Zadie Smith is the author of the novels "White Teeth," "The Autograph Man," "On Beauty," "NW" and "Swing Time"; as well as a novella, "The Embassy of Cambodia"; three collections of essays, "Changing My Mind," "Feel Free" and "Intimations"; a collection of short stories, "Grand Union"; and the play, "The Wife of Willesden," adapted from Chaucer. She is also the editor of "The Book of Other People." Zadie Smith was born in north-west London, where she still lives.

About the Conversation Partner

New York Times best-selling author Tayari Jones is the author of four novels, most recently "An American Marriage." Published in 2018, "An American Marriage" is an Oprah's Book Club Selection and also appeared on Barack Obama's summer reading list as well as his year-end roundup. The novel was awarded the Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly known as the Orange Prize), Aspen Words Prize and an NAACP Image Award. It has been published in two dozen countries.

Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She is an Andrew D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University and the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Creative Writing at Emory University.