“We try to adapt, to learn, to accommodate, sometimes resisting, other times submitting to, whatever confronts us. But writers go further: they take this largely shapeless bewilderment and pour it into a mold of their own devising. Writing is all resistance,” writes Zadie Smith in “Peonies,” the first essay in Intimations: Six Essays, a collection released at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic with reflections on creativity and isolation. In these brief, intimate, and thought-provoking essays, Smith explores ideas and questions sparked by an unprecedented moment, such as the relationship between time and work, and the misery and suffering endured by each individual: “The writer learns how not to write. The actor not to act. The painter how never to see her studio and so on.” Less than one hundred pages, this slim volume can be carried around by any reader or writer seeking their daily dose of clarity and inspiration.
