Bøger af Ali Smith

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 2022SHORTLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2022

BITCH. SCOLD. HARRIDAN.For centuries past, and all across the worldDRAGON. TIGRESS. SHE-DEVIL.There are words for a certain kind of womanFURY. HARPY. SPITFIRE.Words that raise our hackles, fire up our bloodHUSSY. SIREN. VIXEN.Words that tell a storyIn this blazing cauldron of a book, the boldest writers of our day take up these words and take up their pen, celebrating fifty years of Virago.

Being short, you might think the story's 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 shouldn't be made up of, what it should and shouldn't 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 don't have closure, argues one contributor, 'because life doesn't 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 Hawthorne's 'Twice Told Tales' to Kafka's modernist nightmares, these essays offer new and unique inroads into classic texts, both for the literature student and aspiring writer.

"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"--

"From the Man Booker Prize shortlisted-author of the brilliant Seasonal Quartet series-a major new novel that promises to capture the present moment with Ali Smith's genius and bold spirit. "A story is never an answer. A story is always a question." Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history? What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us? What does it take to unlock our future? Following her astonishing Seasonal Quartet, Ali Smith again lights a way for us through the nightmarish now, in a vital celebration of companionship in all its timeless and contemporary, legendary and unpindownable, spellbinding and shapeshifting forms. Companion Piece stands apart from the Quartet, which remains discrete unto itself. But like Smith's groundbreaking series, this new novel boldly captures the spirit of the times. 'Every hello, like every voice, holds its story ready, waiting.'"--

"Originally published in hardcover in Great Britain by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd., a division of Penguin Random House Ltd., London, in 2017"--Copyright page.

Hailed among the BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2011 by Jeanette Winterson, A.S. Byatt, Patrick Ness, Sebastian Barry, Boyd Tonkin, Erica Wagner...A sparkling satire from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and WOMEN'S PRIZE-WINNING author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet'Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting' Guardian'Adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read' Literary Review'Smith can make anything happen, which is why she is one of our most exciting writers today' Daily Telegraph'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . .'As time passes by and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbours and the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they first appear...

A wildly inventive collection of fiction from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and BAILEYS PRIZE-WINNING author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet'She's a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense' Alain de Botton'I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul' Evening Standard

A vitally alive and ever-surprising collection of stories from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and WOMEN'S PRIZE-WINNING author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet'Bold and sensitive. Smith's prose is a joy' Independent'Captures quiet epiphanies of the extraordinary in the mundane' Sunday Times'These stories fizz with life' The Times Literary Supplement Individually lucid and luminous, these tales resonate subtly together. In examining the distances and connections between ourselves and others, expertly inching us closer to the bone, Ali Smith's storytelling has never seemed so necessary, so moving or so joyous.

A form-bending and endlessly inventive collection of short stories - from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and WOMEN'S PRIZE-WINNING author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet'A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form' Independent 'Hurrah for Ali Smith. The best short-story writers make it look as easy as making a cup of tea. Ali Smith is one of these... A bold and brilliant collection of stories by a writer unafraid to give it to us as it is' The TimesA middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. An innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, we see a narrator, 'Ali', as she drinks tea, phones a friend and muses on the relationship between the short story and a nymph.Innovative, sophisticated and intelligent, The First Person and Other Stories effortlessly appeals to our hearts, heads and funny bones in equal measure. One-of-a-kind Ali Smith and the short story are made for each other.

A richly inventive new collection of stories from the MAN BOOKER PRIZE-SHORTLISTED and 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' Observer'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' ScotsmanWhy 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 right now 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.

From the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of How to be both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal quartet Artful is a revelation; a new kind of book altogether . . . it could have only been written by Ali Smith. An intimate study of grief that makes you glad to be alive Jackie Kay Playful and audacious Independent Powerful and moving London Review of Books Magical... 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 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 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 Smiths trademark humour, inventiveness, poignancy and critical insight, this is unique experiment in form, style, life, love, death, immortality and what art can mean.

There's Amy and there's Ash. There's ice and there's fire. There's England and there's Scotland. Ali Smith evokes the twin spirits of time and place in an extraordinarily powerful first novel, which teases out the connections between people, the attractions, the ghostly repercussions. By turns funny, haunting and disconcertingly moving, LIKE soars across hidden borders between cultures, countries, families, friends and lovers. Subtle and complex, it confounds expectations about fiction and truths. 'Ingenious, shimmering fiction, written with a poetic grace that subtly illuminates the tensions between hope and desire, between past and present' Scotland on Sunday

A teenage girl finds unexpected sexual freedom on a trip to Amsterdam. A woman trapped at a dinner party comes up against an ugly obsession. The stories in Free Love are about desire, memory, sexual ambiguity and the imagination. In the harsh light of dislocation, the people in them still find connections, words blowing in the street, love in unexpected places. Ali Smith shows how things come together and how they break apart. She disconcerts and affirms with the lightest touch, to make us love and live differently.

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

* A definitive collection of 101 short pieces from 1900 to 2000 this is an invaluable volume of women's writing this century

Forestil dig at du har inviteret nogle venner til middag og en af dem tager en fremmed med som gæst. Det er fint nok. Han virker flink og sympatisk. Forestil dig så at denne fremmede halvvejs gennem middagen rejser sig fra bordet går ovenpå og låser sig inde på et af værelserne. Og nægter at komme ud. Det er lige præcis hvad Miles Garth gør under et middagsselskab i Londons hippe middelklasse-forstad Greenwich. Han er den mystiske gæst som aldrig går. Forestil dig at han bliver derinde i månedsvis ja for evigt. Den fortvivlede værtinde vil ikke ødelægge døren men skriver om sagen i sin faste avisspalte og snart samles en fascineret folkemængde uden for huset. Miles er blevet Milo og har fået kultstatus. Han har sat noget i gang som ingen ved hvad betyder. Men hvem er Miles? Gradvis får læseren indblik i små næsten usynlige hændelser fra hans tidligere liv som har drejet andres liv i en ny uforudset retning. I MILES OMKREDS (originaltitel There but for the 2011) blev valgt som årets bedste roman i Guardian. Den engelske presse skrev bl.a.: Legende humoristisk alvorlig lysende intelligent og dybt bevægende Guardian. Denne dybt tilfredsstillende roman formår det sjældne kunststykke at være fjerlet og alvorlig på samme tid. Literary Review. En forførende ode til menneskelige forbindelser pebret med eksistentiel undren og virtuos ordleg. Time Magazine 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 Pige møder dreng (2008).

Pige møder dreng. En historie lige så gammel som tiden selv. Men her får dette møde en ganske særlig iscenesættelse. Ali Smiths roman er baseret på Ovids fortælling om myten om Iphis pigen der blev opdraget til dreng for at overleve men forelskede sig i en anden kvinde. Det handler om piger og drenge piger og piger og om kærlighed og opvågnen. Legende og løssluppen skildrer Ali Smith to søstre som hver især står over for et møde som bliver begyndelsen på deres forvandling. Pige møder dre ng er såvel en politisk træfsikker som poetisk mangetydig fortælling om at omformulere sine livsvilkår og at acceptere de forandringer de indebærer.