ALI SMITH's works of fiction include the novel Hotel World, which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award, and The Accidental, which won the Whitbread Award and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her story collections include Free Love, which won a Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award, The Whole Story and Other Stories, and How to be Both, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2015. Born in Inverness, Scotland, Smith lives in Cambridge, England.
Magical
*Sunday Times*
Radical, dazzling . . . Those writers making doomy predictions
about the death of the novel should read Smith's re-imagined
novel/s, and take note of the life it contains
*Independent*
How to be both is a demanding, restless, brain-ache of a book that
is simultaneously a delight and a challenge...What happens here is
that you have to let go and revel in life's poetry. The effect is
magical
*Sunday Times*
Ali Smith is an unrepentant stylist...How to be both reads as if
she has summoned words from some region of the unconscious and
released them in a trance...Smith's fervent, vital, incantatory
prose is entirely her own
*Prospect*
Dealing with grief, obsession, sexuality and the versatility of art
itself, Smith has created a stunning work that is as rewarding as
it is challenging
*The List*
Dazzling
*Independent*
Stunning
*The List*
This warm, funny, subtle, layered, intelligent book deserves to be
read at least one-and-a-half times
*Spectator*
Utterly contemporary and vividly historical
*The Independent*
Vital
*Prospect*
One of the most inventive writers alive and when she starts to have
fun with language, and even the idea of what a book should be, the
result is exciting, full of joy and wryly funny
*Emerald Street*
Ali Smith is a one-off. Her imagination and originality make her
one of the most exciting novelists of her generation and for such a
profound book this is a remarkably easy and immensely enjoyable
read. Both George and Francesco touch the heart and their thoughts
and ideas linger on in the mind long after the final page.
*Daily Express*
Smith is the brightest spark in a recent explosion of female
novelists taking dizzying risks with form and voice . . . most
contemporary male authors feel Jurassic by comparison.
*Metro*
A marvellous exploration of what it means to look, then look again.
Spiralling and twisting stories suggest the ways in which we can
transcend walls and barriers - not only between people but between
emotions, art forms and historical periods. It is a jeu d'esprit
about a girl coming of age and coming to terms with her mother's
death, a ghosting of a Renaissance fresco painter in a
twenty-first-century frame and an exhortation to do the twist
*New Statesman Books of the Year 2014*
Brilliant. No one combines experimentalism and soulfulness like Ali
Smith
*Observer Books of the Year*
Dizzingly good and so clever that it makes you want to dance
*New Statesman*
Ali Smith's novels soar higher every time and How to be both
doesn't disappoint
*Observer*
Two of the most rewarding reads of the year were wrapped up in one
book: Ali Smith's How to Be Both (Hamish Hamilton), a novel in two
sections published to be read in either order. Bringing together
the effervescent narratives of an Italian Renaissance fresco
painter and a modern teenager, the book explored love, art and
possibility with an extraordinary freshness that won it a Booker
shortlisting and the Goldsmiths prize for originality.
*Guardian*
I've decided - and I do not write this flippantly - that Ali Smith
is a genius
*LA Review of Books*
Many of this novel's great joys derive from Smith's ability to tie
together the two seemingly disparate stories in wonderful and
unexpected ways. It's a meditative book, steeped in the voices of
these characters. . . . Ali Smith is a master storyteller, and How
to Be Both is a charming and erudite novel that can quite literally
make us rethink the way we read
*The Philadelphia Inquirer*
Captivating. . . . Your experience of the novel will be different
depending on which story you start with. But either way, the
revelations and conclusions will be the same. How to Be Both indeed
works both ways, demonstrating not only the power of art itself but
also the mastery of Smith's prose
*San Francisco Chronicle*
A synthesis of questions long contemplated by an extraordinarily
thoughtful author, who succeeds quite well in implanting those
questions into well-drawn, memorable people
*The New York Times*
An entirely delightful and moving story with characters so
endearing and human that you want to remark, as Francesco's mother
does about her daughter's drawing, 'It's very good. Well seen.'. .
. When you reach the end of this playful and wise novel, you want
to turn to the beginning and read it again to piece together its
mysteries and keep both halves simultaneously in mind. Reading Ali
Smith's How to Be Both is like finishing a cake and having another
delicious one still before you to enjoy
*The Dallas Morning News*
How to be both celebrates the gift of surprise. . . . I found
myself smiling again and again, caught unawares by how well and how
beautifully Smith ties together so many seemingly disparate
elements. . . . The past and present are connected through an
Internet search, themes of death and memory are explored, pop
culture and high art swirl together, and careful research allows
the line between fiction and history to blur
*Bookslut*
Inventive, playful, compassionate. An immensely enjoyable read.
*Daily Express*
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