Ali Smith

Winter? Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. The shortest days, the longest nights. The trees are bare and shivering. The summer's leaves? Dead litter. The world shrinks; the sap sinks. But winter makes things visible. And if there's ice, there'll be fire. In Ali Smith's Winter, lifeforce matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to her sensational Autumn, Smith's shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It's the season that teaches us survival. Here comes Winter.

Den har kommit att kallas den första post-brexit-romanen, utgiven bara några månader efter omröstningen. Det är hösten 2016. Daniel Gluck är 101 år. Han ligger i sin säng på äldreboendet och drömmer. Hans vän, konsthistorikern Elisabeth Demand, är 32 år och har hela livet framför sig. Hon besöker honom ofta; läser högt ur böcker, berättar vad som pågår ute i världen och frågar sig vad som är meningen med allt. I återblickar får vi följa deras nära vänskap och samtal från när Elisabeth är åtta år. I den här bländande, abstrakta romanen experimenterar Smith skickligt med tid, historia och konst för att skildra en omvälvande höst i Storbritanniens historia. Med Höst, bevisar Smith återigen att hon är en av den engelska litteraturens skarpaste och mest eleganta pennor. Boken nominerades till ManBooker-priset 2017. Ali Smith, född 1962, är en av Storbritanniens mest tongivande författare. Höst är första delen i en romancykel om de fyra årstiderna.

Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Ali Smith's remix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold. It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations. Funny and fresh, poetic and political, here is a tale of change for the modern world. The Myths series brings together some of the world's finest writers, each of whom has retold a myth in a contemporary and memorable way. Authors in the series include Karen Armstrong, Margaret Atwood, A. S. Byatt, David Grossman, Natsuo Kirino, Alexander McCall Smith, Philip Pullman, Ali Smith and Jeanette Winterson.

Full transcript of Ali Smith's Muriel Spark lecture, given in November 2017.

Discover 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 A Book of the Year according to: the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Evening Standard, The Times.'Dazzling' Daily TelegraphWinter? Bleak. Frosty wind, earth as iron, water as stone, so the old song goes. The shortest days, the longest nights. The trees are bare and shivering. The summer's leaves? Dead litter. The world shrinks; the sap sinks. But winter makes things visible. And if there's ice, there'll be fire. In Ali Smith's Winter, lifeforce matches up to the toughest of the seasons. In this second novel in her acclaimed Seasonal cycle, the follow-up to her sensational Autumn, Smith's shape-shifting quartet of novels casts a merry eye over a bleak post-truth era with a story rooted in history, memory and warmth, its taproot deep in the evergreens: art, love, laughter. It's the season that teaches us survival. Here comes Winter.

MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST - The first novel in Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet is an unforgettable story about aging and time and love--and stories themselves. Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. Two old friends--Daniel, a centenarian, and Elisabeth, born in 1984--look to both the future and the past as the United Kingdom stands divided by a historic, once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand-in-hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever. A luminous meditation on the meaning of richness and harvest and worth, Autumn is the first installment of Ali Smith's Seasonal Quartet, and it casts an eye over our own time: Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearean jeu d'esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s pop art. Autumn is wide-ranging in time-scale and light-footed through histories.

Bibliotek är platser där vi kan finna nya världar och ny kunskap, men också platser att fördriva tid på och fly till. Hur formar de oss? Vilken roll spelar de i samhället? Och vad säger det om vår tid att de offentliga biblioteken nu är hotade? I sin hyllade novellsamling Bibliotek uppehåller sig Ali Smith vid frågan om litteraturens och bibliotekens makt. Med sitt karakteristiskt intelligenta och eleganta språk varvar hon lekfulla och rörande noveller med olika kända och okända personers biblioteksminnen. Smiths berättelser löper genom tid och rum, och bildar en vältalig och oförutsägbar hyllning till våra bibliotek. Ali Smith är född 1962 i Inverness, Skottland, i dag bor hon i Cambridge. Hennes romaner och novellsamlingar har översatts till ett 20-tal språk och tilldelats prestigefulla priser som Man Booker-priset. Bibliotek utkom på engelska 2015. På svenska finns sedan tidigare romanerna Jag är allt du drömt och Flicka möter pojke, som Atlas återutger i pocketupplagor.

Flicka möter pojke, lika mycket en politisk satir som en kärlekshistoria, har sitt ursprung i Ovidius berättelse om Iphis flickan som uppfostras till pojke för att överleva, men som blir kär i en annan kvinna. I Ali Smiths händer har den antika myten förflyttats till ett nutida Skottland. Syskonparet Anthea och Imogen arbetar för det skrupellösa multinationella företaget Pure. Anthea möter den orädda aktivisten Robin, blir blixtförälskad och lockas med i proteströrelsen mot Pure. Imogen ställs inför ett dilemma när hon upptäcker att hennes syster förälskat sig i en kvinna. Fram växer en berusande historia om alla människors rätt att själva definiera vad de är och inte är eller att låta bli att göra det.

En varm semesterdag kliver en ung kvinna över tröskeln hos den bekymrade familjen Smart. Hennes vita bil står parkerad vid vägkanten, kanske är den trasig. Innan någon i familjen hunnit förstå vad som händer har den främmande kvinnan bjudit in sig själv på middag. Som en virvelvind intar Amber familjen Smarts sommarhus och med sin kompromisslösa uppriktighet börjar hon ifrågasätta familjemedlemmarnas stagnerade tillvaro. Med värme och humor tecknar Smith ett familjeporträtt som elegant rör sig mellan det tragiska och det livsbejakande. Jag är allt du drömt är en roman om hur till synes slumpartade möten kan förändra allt.

I 1400-tallets Italia kler en ung kvinne seg som mann for å kunne utvikle malertalentet sitt. Under navnet Francesco del Cossa får hun i oppdrag å dekorere veggene i det nybygde palasset i Ferrara. Fem hundre år senere klamrer ungjenta George seg til minnet om den nylig avdøde moren. Særlig tenker hun på den siste ferien de hadde sammen: Morens fascinasjon for en lite kjent renessansekunstner førte familien til italienske Ferrara og til byens freskedekorerte palass. For George blir det avgjørende å forstå morens begeistring for en glemt maler, og tilbake i England oppsøker hun et av få overlevde verk signert denne Francesco del Cossa. «Begge deler» er en leken og bevegende roman, der ingenting er helt som det ser ut. På finurlig vis lar Ali Smith to historier fra to århundrer slynge seg inn og ut av hverandre, som i livet selv: Fortiden lever i nåtiden - i kunsten og i historien, i samfunnet og i enkeltmennesket.

A richly inventive collection of stories about our enduring love of books from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 'Smith is dazzling in her daring. Sheer inventive power' ObserverWhy are books so powerful? What do the books we read make of us? And what does the vanishing of public libraries say about us? These stories are about what we do with books and what they do with us: how they travel with us; how they shock us, change us, challenge us, banish time while making us older, wiser and ageless all at once; how they remind us to pay attention to the world we make. Public libraries are places of joy, freedom, community and discovery - and they are under threat from funding cuts and widespread closures across the UK and further afield. With this brilliantly inventive collection, Ali Smith raises her voice in defence of our public libraries, celebrating their essential place in our culture and history.*****'Ali Smith is a one-off. Her imagination and originality make her one of the most exciting novelists of her generation' Daily Express'In Ali Smith we have a writer whose dazzling sophistication will surely be celebrated, studied and argues over hundreds of years after we're gone' Scotsman'Smith's world is incredibly generous - it's a place where all sorts of stories and human connections are possible' Metro

"The crow crossed the sky, slow-beating her wings. Beat, beat, beat. It was night, not yet morning, and her feathers were so black that she coasted the air invisible above the city wall." Thus begins Ali Smith's masterful retelling of Sophocles' tragedy about a young Theban princess, who decides to bury her dishonoured brother Polynices against King Creon's express orders - with heart-breaking consequences. Vividly told and wonderfully illustrated, Smith's Antigone is the perfect introduction to Greek tragedy for any reader, young or old.

MAN BOOKER PRIZE FINALIST - A novel all about art's versatility, borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take. "Cements Smith's reputation as one of the finest and most innovative of our contemporary writers. By some divine alchemy, she is both funny and moving; she combines intellectual rigor with whimsy" --The Los Angeles Review of Books One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century How to be both is a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the child of a child of the 1960s. Two tales of love and injustice twist into a singular yarn where time gets timeless, structural gets playful, knowing gets mysterious, fictional gets real--and all life's givens get given a second chance. Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith's novels are like nothing else.

Som hun har for vane har Ali Smith begået en legende men også alvorlig og bevægende roman hvor intet helt er som det ser ud. Det er to historier der slynger sig ind og ud af hinanden en lag på lag-fortælling lidt som når der under den færdige fresko dukker en oprindelig skitse op. Romanen falder i to dele der kan læses i vilkårlig rækkefølge som selvfølgelig giver en meget forskellig oplevelse så det er i den grad op til læserne selv at vælge hvor de vil begynde. Francesco del Cossa der godt nok er født kvinde men lever som mand kæmper for at skabe sig et navn som fresko-maler i renæssancens Italien. Han bliver hyret til en opgave i Este-familiens nybyggede Palazzo Schifanoia i Ferrara. Her skal han sammen med andre malere lave tolv paneler i fresko allegorier over årets måneder. Fem hundrede år senere står Francesco foran sit portræt af Sankt Vincent Ferrer på National Gallery i London og ser en dreng (eller er det en pige?) stå og studere det. I vores tids Cambridge sørger en ung teenagepige Georgia kaldet George over sin nyligt afdøde mor. Hun tænker på sin mors særheder hendes overbevisning om at hun blev overvåget af sikkerhedstjenesten hendes krøllede hjerne og ordspil hendes distancerende ironi. Hun tænker på hendes kærlighed til George og hendes lillebror og deres liv sammen. Hun mindes dengang de var på ferie i Ferrara og så de smukke freskoer i Palazzo Schifanoia Paladset som jager kedsomheden på flugt . Ali Smith (f. 1962) debuterede i 1995 med den prisbelønnede novellesamling Free Love and Other Stories. Hun har været finalist til Booker-prisen og Orange-prisen to gange og blev tildelt Whitbread-prisen for romanen The Accidental (dansk oversættelse En fremmed flytter ind 2006). På dansk udkom senest romanen I MILES OMKREDS (2013).

Borrowing from painting's fresco technique to make an original literary double-take, this book features forms, times, truths and fictions.

Rachel Kneebone (born 1973, Oxfordshire) is a London-based artist internationally renowned for her porcelain sculptures that intricately fuse human, natural and abstract forms to explore universal themes such as sexual desire, mortality, anguish and despair. Launched in anticipation of ‘399 Days’, Kneebone’s latest presentation at White Cube, London, in summer 2014, this publication features works from Kneebone’s acclaimed solo exhibition at Brooklyn Museum in 2012, which included eight of the artist’s works in dialogue with fifteen bronze sculptures by Auguste Rodin. Featuring a foreword by Catherine Morris and a text by Ali Smith, this beautifully designed and produced hardback publication contains over fifty colour reproductions and has been developed with support from Brooklyn Museum.

What makes for a good short story? Being short, you might think the storys structure would yield an answer to this question more readily than, say, the novel. But for as long as the short story has been around, arguments have raged as to what it should and shouldnt be made up of, what it should and shouldnt do. Here,15 leading contemporary practitioners offer structural appreciations of past masters of the form as well as their own perspectives on what the short story does so well. The best short stories dont have closure, argues one contributor, because life doesnt have closure; plot must be written with the denouement constantly in view, quotes another. Covering a century of writing that arguably saw all the major short forms emerge, from Hawthornes Twice Told Tales to Kafkas modernist nightmares, these essays offer new and unique inroads into classic texts, both for the literature student and aspiring writer.

A playful, form-bending novel from the Booker Prize-shortlisted, Women's Prize-winning author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet 'Playful and audacious' Independent Narrated by a character who is haunted - literally - by a former lover, Artful slips slyly between fiction and essay, guiding the reader thrillingly through a sequence of ideas on art and literature. With Smith's trademark humour, inventiveness, poignancy and critical insight, this is unique experiment in form, style, life, love, death, immortality and what art can mean. Based on four electrifying lectures given by the author at Oxford University, and exploring the explosive connections between art, story, memory and grief - Artful is a tidal wave of ideas to blast away the cobwebs and change how you see the world. *****'Artful is a revelation; a new kind of book altogether . . . makes you glad to be alive' Jackie Kay 'Powerful and moving' London Review of Books 'Blending of criticism and fiction, Artful belongs in a genre of its own . . . Joyful for anyone interested in the art of writing, and living, well' Anita Sethi, New Statesman