Novelist opens UCLA season

UCLA Live opens its 2006- 07 season and Spoken Word Series with award-winning English novelist Zadie Smith, whose bestselling, critically acclaimed 2001 debut, "White Teeth," earned the then-23-yearold comparisons to Salman Rushdie, John Irving and Martin Amis.

Her most recent novel, "On Beauty," was shortlisted for the

Man Booker Prize and recently won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction.

Smith will appear in conversation with a special guest to be announced at 8 p.m. Fri., Sept. 15, at Royce Hall on the UCLA campus. The estimated running time is one hour, followed by a question-and-answer session and a book-signing. Smith studied English at

Cambridge University. She is the daughter of an English father and Jamaican mother. The family lived in North London.

Tickets are $35, $28 and $22 and can be purchased online at www.uclalive.org, via phone at (310) 825-2101, or in person at the UCLA Central Ticket Office at the southwest corner of the James West Alumni Center and at all Ticketmaster outlets.