Zadie Smith's The Autograph Man

Pegged on the concept of otherness Bakhtin''s principle of dialogue highlights the differential relation between a center and all that is not the center. Bakhtinian thought centers on the dialogue between the self and the other. Bakhtin argues that any notion acquires meaning only in dialogue with another notion. However the self in Bakhtin''s notion is not a self-sufficient construct by itself. The self gains meaning/existence only in its relation with the other. Zadie Smith''s The Autograph Man: A Dialogic Perspective attempts to probe into the novel under study as a dialogic narrative viewing it as a dialogue between the self and the other which constitutes the Jewish and the Goyish voices in the novel. Besides the novel also proves itself as a dialogue between the Author Hero and the Reader.