The search for identity in Hanif Kureishi's the buddha of suburbia, the black album and Zadie Smith's white teeth

Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith problematize the fixed definitions of identity and deconstruct them by emphasizing the unstable nature of identity. In this context, the aim of this thesis is to explore how Hanif Kureishi and Zadie Smith place the seemingly fixed concepts of race, identity, and ethnicity on slippery ground and criticize traditional binaries of the highly hybridized culture and society of the post-war London metropolis by making references to Homi K. Bhabha's theoretical ideas on hybridity, ambivalence, and the third space. In their novels, Kureishi and Smith create characters who have dynamic hybrid identities that are always open to change. In other words, characters challenge essentialist notions about identity and present continually changing forms instead. By analyzing the three novels, we see that Kureishi and Smith consider identity fluid and unstable in the globalized world.