Award-winning author Zadie Smith is to enrol at the prestigious US university Harvard, near Boston, for a series of courses.

The writer of White Teeth and the forthcoming The Autograph Man will attend the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, where she will continue with her own writing project as well as studying.

Graduate studies is something she has always wanted to do

Georgia Garrett, agent

"She will be taking courses on the modern novel but hasn't chosen any specific classes yet," said her agent Georgia Garrett.

Her new book is published at the end of September in the UK but has already been long-listed for the Booker Prize.

Backdrop

Ms Garrett said the switch to academia was only natural for Smith, whose prizes include the Commonwealth Writers First Book Award and the Whitbread First Novel Award.

"Graduate studies is something she has always wanted to do," Ms Garrett said.

Garrett could not confirm if her academic studies would form the backdrop for a third book.

"She wants to do this course first, and when she wants to write another book, she will."

The novelist is no stranger to hallowed academic institutions and received a first in English from Cambridge University.

A dramatisation of her first novel White Teeth is due to be shown on Channel 4 in the UK later this month.