Ali Smith

A collection of brand-new short stories written by prize-winning, bestselling writers and inspired by Kafka - published to commemorate the centenary of his death*Chosen as a 2024 highlight in the Guardian, the Financial Times, the Daily Mail, New Statesman, Esquire and the New European*Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the great geniuses of twentieth-century literature. What happens when some of the most original literary minds of today take an idea, a mood or a line from his work and use it to spark something new? From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by the visionary imagination of a writer working one hundred years ago, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.

"A woman receives an unexpected call from a former classmate asking for help deciphering a puzzling interaction, and from there, Smith spins out a broader story about loneliness, refuge and freedom." --The New York Times Book Review "Lyrical and timely... Smith's novel will push readers to consider what it means to let people into your life, even when you don't want to." --TIME A story is never an answer. A story is always a question. A day spent locked in a room by border officials without any explanation as to why. A riddle that seemingly has no answer: curlew or curfew, you choose. A phone call from a college friend who hasn't been in touch in years. And all of it is somehow inextricably linked to the life of a young blacksmith hounded from her trade and branded a vagrant nearly 500 years ago. Award-winning author Ali Smith shines a guiding light through the nightmarish now with a provocative novel that intertwines our atomized present and the uncannily parallel era of the Black Plague. In the hope that our medieval past may unlock the answers we seek to understand our hazy future, Companion Piece is a kaleidoscope of human history and experience, and a stunning addition to Smith's gorgeous canon.

Margaret Tait (1918–1999) was a pioneering filmmaker for whom words and images made the world real. 'In a documentary', she wrote, real things 'lose their reality... and there's no poetry in that. In poetry, something else happens.' If film, for Tait, was a poetic medium, her poems are works of craft and observation that are generous and independent in their vision of the world, poems that make seeing happen. Sarah Neely, Professor in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies at the University of Glasgow, draws on Tait’s three poetry collections, her book of short stories, her magazine articles and unpublished notebooks to make available for the first time a collection of the full range of Tait's writing. Her introduction discusses Tait as filmmaker and writer in the context of mid-twentieth-century Scottish culture, and a comprehensive list of bibliographic and film resources provides an indispensible guide for further exploration.

This story of three men's work helping traumatized kids in one of America's most underserved cities reveals how mindfulness tools can help children and communities not only survive but thrive In this inspiring book, founders of The Holistic Life Foundation Ali Smith, Atman Smith, and Andres Gonzalez describe how they have spent the past twenty years teaching yoga, meditation, and breathwork to thousands of at-risk kids in Baltimore schools helping them to develop deep reserves of patience, empathy, resolve, and--when needed--the righteous anger that fuels deep structural change. Their work has received wide national attention due to their remarkable results: The schools that have participated in their programs have seen suspension rates plummet and graduation rates go through the roof. Ali and Atman discovered as young children the power of mindfulness practices to sustain them through the challenges of growing up in a neighborhood in Baltimore that was struggling with poverty and violence--a community they now serve. The Holistic Life Foundation's mission is to empower kids to find this same stillness and light within themselves and to let it shine out to help change the world. In this book, Ali, Atman and Andres share hands-on mindfulness and meditation tools readers can teach kids that will empower them to do this same work in their own communities. Let Your Light Shine is essential reading for parents, educators, activists, and anyone looking to make a difference in the lives of young people.

"A woman receives an unexpected call from a former classmate asking for help deciphering a puzzling interaction, and from there, Smith spins out a broader story about loneliness, refuge and freedom." --The New York Times Book Review "Lyrical and timely... Smith's novel will push readers to consider what it means to let people into your life, even when you don't want to." --TIME A story is never an answer. A story is always a question. A day spent locked in a room by border officials without any explanation as to why. A riddle that seemingly has no answer: curlew or curfew, you choose. A phone call from a college friend who hasn't been in touch in years. And all of it is somehow inextricably linked to the life of a young blacksmith hounded from her trade and branded a vagrant nearly 500 years ago. Award-winning author Ali Smith shines a guiding light through the nightmarish now with a provocative novel that intertwines our atomized present and the uncannily parallel era of the Black Plague. In the hope that our medieval past may unlock the answers we seek to understand our hazy future, Companion Piece is a kaleidoscope of human history and experience, and a stunning addition to Smith's gorgeous canon.

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLERThe unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartetOne day in post-Brexit, mid-pandemic Britain, artist Sandy Gray receives an unexpected phone call from university acquaintance Martina Pelf. Martina is calling Sandy to ask for help with a mysterious question she's been left with after she's spent half a day locked in a room by border control officials for no reason she can fathom: 'Curlew or curfew? You choose.'And what's any of this got to do with the story of a young and talented blacksmith hounded from her trade and her home more than five hundred years ago? Ali Smith's novel takes wing, soaring between our atomised present and our medieval past in the hope we can open our locked down homes and selves to all the other times, other species, other histories, other possibilities.'[An] entertaining and expert portrayal of the world we live in, seen by the most beguiling and likeable of novelistic intelligences' Telegraph'[Companion Piece] makes you look at the world afresh. For me, it turned a cold and depressing day into a bright one' New StatesmanLONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2022

Barbara Hepworth is one of the most important artists of the 20th century, yet she has been the subject of relatively few monographs in comparison to her male counterparts. This biography moves beyond the traditional narratives of modernism, truth to materials, and the landscape to provide a penetrating insight into Hepworth’s remarkable life, work and legacy. Barbara Hepworth was reproached for single-mindedness in her lifetime, with critics and commentators framing both the artist and her work as ‘cool and restrained’. A continued focus on her modernist abstract sculpture of the 1930s and its relation to her male contemporaries has left vast swathes of her work and related passions overlooked. This fully illustrated biography reflects for the first time Hepworth’s multi-faceted, interdisciplinary and networked approach, shedding light as never before on her interests in music, dance, poetry, contemporary politics, science and technology; her engagement with these fields through friends and networks as well as her artistic practice; and the ways in which she synthesized sometimes seemingly conflicting disciplines and ideas into one coherent and inspirational philosophy of art and life. With 178 illustrations

The unmissable finale to Ali Smith's dazzling literary tour de force: the Seasonal quartet concludes in 2020 with SummerIn the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother Robert just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile the world's in meltdown - and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they're living on borrowed time. This is a story about people on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers. So: where does family begin? And what do people who think they've got nothing in common have in common? Summer. PRAISE FOR SEASONAL: 'The novel of the year is obviously Autumn' Observer on Autumn 'Masterful... Winter is utterly original' New York Times Book Review on Winter'Luminous, generous, hope-filled... A dazzling hymn to hope. Ali Smith is lighting us a path out of the nightmarish now' Observer on Spring'Smith's seasonal quartet of novels is a bold and brilliant experiment' Independent

'My mother began me one evening in 1968 on a table in the café of the town's only cinema . . .'One hot summer a stranger arrives at the Norfolk holiday home of the Smart family. Intriguing, beguiling, arresting, Amber brings love, joy, pain and not a little upheaval, throwing the carefully ordered world of the Smarts into the air. They will be forever changed by Amber but how will they know whether it is for the bad, the good or something else entirely?'Joyous ... writing as rapture, as giddy delight' The Times'Funny, sexy, poignant, bewitching' Observer

From the Man Booker Prize Finalist comes the third novel in her Seasonal Quartet--a New York Times Notable Book and longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2020 What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tell the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown, Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal.

Vad förenar Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, nutid, dåtid, norr, söder, öst, väst, en man som sörjer svunna tider, en kvinna fången i samtiden? Våren. Den stora förenaren. Genom ett filter av å ena sidan historiemigrationen och å andra Pericles en av Shakespeares mest motståndskraftiga och uppslupna pjäser berättar Ali Smith den omöjliga historien i vår omöjliga tid. I en tid av murar och lockdown, öppnar Smith dörren. Tiden vi lever i förändrar naturen. Frågan är om det förändrar historiens natur? Hoppas att våren är för alltid. Vår är den tredje boken i Ali Smiths hyllade årstidssvit. "Hennes bästa bok hittills, i en lysande lovsång till hoppet, förenar hon dåtid och nutid genom en kör av röster." Observer "Vår är en häpnadsväckande prestation och en bok för alla årstider." Independent "Smith berättar historer med en röst som man inte kan låta bli att lyssna till." The Times

From the bestselling author of Autumn and Winter, as well as the Baileys Prize-winning How to be both, comes the next installment in the remarkable, once-in-a-generation masterpiece, the Seasonal Quartet What unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time, and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal. Praise for the Seasonal Quartet: 'Transcendental writing about art, death, political lies, and all the dimensions of love. It's a case not so much of reading between the lines as of being blinded by the light between the lines - in a good way' Deborah Levy on Autumn 'The novel of the year is obviously Autumn, which managed the miracle of making at least a kind of sense out of post-Brexit Britain' Olivia Laing, Observer on Autumn 'Ali Smith is flat-out brilliant, and she's on fire these days... Combining brainy playfulness with depth, topicality with timelessness, and complexity with accessibility while delivering an impassioned defence of human decency and art' NPR on Winter 'Rank[s] among the most original, consoling and inspiring of the artistic responses to 'this mad and bitter mess' of the present' Financial Times on Winter 'A novel of great ferocity, tenderness and generosity of spirit that you feel Dickens would have recognised... Smith is engaged in an extended process of mythologizing the present states of Britain... Luminously beautiful' Observer on Winter

THE SUNDAY TIMES NUMBER ONE BESTSELLERDiscover Ali Smith's dazzling, once-in-a-generation series, the Seasonal Quartet, a tour-de-force quartet of novels about love, time, art, politics, and how we live right nowAll four instalments of the quartet are available to buy and read in paperback and ebook now: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer 'Her best book yet, a dazzling hymn to hope, uniting the past and the present with a chorus of voices' Observer'An astonishing accomplishment and a book for all seasons' Independent'State-of-the-nation novels which understand that the nation is you, is me, is all of us' New Statesman'Smith tells stories in a voice you can't help but listen to' The TimesWhat unites Katherine Mansfield, Charlie Chaplin, Shakespeare, Rilke, Beethoven, Brexit, the present, the past, the north, the south, the east, the west, a man mourning lost times, a woman trapped in modern times? Spring. The great connective. With an eye to the migrancy of story over time, and riffing on Pericles, one of Shakespeare's most resistant and rollicking works, Ali Smith tells the impossible tale of an impossible time. In a time of walls and lockdown Smith opens the door. The time we're living in is changing nature. Will it change the nature of story? Hope springs eternal. LONGLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2019Praise for the Seasonal Quartet:'Transcendental writing about art, death, political lies, and all the dimensions of love. It's a case not so much of reading between the lines as of being blinded by the light between the lines - in a good way' Deborah Levy on Autumn'The novel of the year is obviously Autumn, which managed the miracle of making at least a kind of sense out of post-Brexit Britain' Olivia Laing, Observer on Autumn'Ali Smith is flat-out brilliant, and she's on fire these days... Combining brainy playfulness with depth, topicality with timelessness, and complexity with accessibility while delivering an impassioned defence of human decency and art' NPR on Winter'Rank[s] among the most original, consoling and inspiring of the artistic responses to 'this mad and bitter mess' of the present' Financial Times on Winter'A novel of great ferocity, tenderness and generosity of spirit that you feel Dickens would have recognised... Smith is engaged in an extended process of mythologizing the present states of Britain... Luminously beautiful' Observer on Winter

Høsten 2016. Daniel har levd i mer enn hundre år. Elisabeth, født i 1984, har blikket rettet mot fremtiden. Storbritannia er delt i to av en historisk avstemning som vil få konsekvenser for alles fremtid. Folket har vunnet; folket har tapt. Veien fra håp til håpløshet er kort. Heldigvis finnes kunsten og litteraturen. Høst er Ali Smiths varme og samfunnskritiske meditasjon over verdenen vi lever i: en verden som blir stadig mer avgrenset og eksklusiv. Smith utforsker erfaringer av tid, hvordan vi er våre erfaringer, hvordan vi bærer dem med oss og hvordan de former oss.

"Smith har näsa för de mest skiftande av samtidens dofter, samtidigt som hon under hängiven språklek låter sina associationsbanor löpa kors och tvärs genom historien." Therese Eriksson, SvDAndra delen i Ali Smiths årstidskvartett tar sig an vintern. Blek, med sin iskalla vind, en tid då allting dör. Fyra personer, tre av dem släkt, samlas i en gigantiskt villa i Cornwall för att fira jul tillsammans. Det är den ständigt arga och protesterande aktivisten Iris, hennes syster och motpol, affärskvinnan Sophia, samt dennes son Arthur och hans följe. För att slippa berätta för sin mamma att hans flickvän lämnat honom, plockar Arthur upp Lux på en busstation som får agera fästmö under helgen. Utlämnade till varandra tvingas dessa fyra personer se sig själva på nya sätt, vilket är både utmanande och helande. I Vinter briljerar Ali Smith åter med sitt skarpa, ironiska och kompromisslösa öga på samtiden och visar att hon är ett av Storbritanniens mest intressanta författarskapen just nu." För några år sedan fick den brittiska författaren Ali Smith och den norske Karl Ove Knausgaard samma idé: att skriva en romankvartett, Höst, Vinter, Vår och Sommar. [...] Men medan Knausgaard sysslar med sin karaktäristiska blandning av navelskådning och breda betraktelser, så blänger Smith ibland sympatiserande, ibland oförlåtande på vår tröstlösa värld där Brexit är en möjlighet." Sarah Begley, Time"En intrikat omarbetning av En julsaga, berättad med flytande, empatisk Dickens-röst, och med förmågan att göra myt till verklighet." Alexandra Harris, The Guardian"Vinter är en rebellisk folksaga, med ekon från Iris Murdoch och Angela Carter ett vredesutbrott mot en värld som har gått fel. [...] Hon vill få oss ur balans, hon vill få oss att spetsa cidern med absint, att kyssa fel läppar. Hon vill skicka rysningar uppför bakbenen på oss och hon lyckas, jublande." Dwight Garner, The New York Times"Sådant som hos andra författare skulle bli klumpigt är infogat sömlöst i Smiths verk." Lucy Scholes, Independent

From Man Booker Prize Finalist Ali Smith, Winter is the second novel in her Seasonal Quartet. This much-anticipated follow-up to Autumn is one of the Best Books of the Year from the New York Public Library. "A stunning meditation on a complex, emotional moment in history." --Time Winter. Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. And now Art's mother is seeing things. Come to think of it, Art's seeing things himself. When four people, strangers and family, converge on a fifteen-bedroom house in Cornwall for Christmas, will there be enough room for everyone? Winter. It makes things visible. Ali Smith's shapeshifting Winter casts a warm, wise, merry and uncompromising eye over a post-truth era in a story rooted in history and memory and with a taproot deep in the evergreens, art and love.