If she were even an ounce less talented it would fall apart.
This is Smith’s method in the seasonal quartet: to force the timely and the timeless together, like the wrong ends of two magnets. At the same time, though, Smith uses these events as a launch to glide up into thinner air, particularly long meditations on art and time, her twin obsessions - including, in this book, reflections on Einstein, “A Winter’s Tale,” the filmmaker Lorena Mazzetti, and swifts, subjects she explores with the poet’s constant willingness to break forward in the direction of a new idea. As she planned from the start, the characters in “ Summer” seem uncannily contemporaneous, agonizing over COVID-19 and the death of George Floyd. It will serve as a time-capsule which will prove to be essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the mood of Britain during this turbulent time.Smith is a gifted storyteller - the whole quartet is highly readable - but story is only half the point of her work. Capturing a snapshot of life in Britain right up until the present day, Smith takes the emotional temperature of a nation grappling with a global pandemic, the brink of Brexit, heart-breaking conditions for refugees, and so much more. The conclusion to Ali Smith’s seasonal quartet seals her reputation as the great chronicler of our age.
Smith, accepting her prize in a speech next to the mural of Orwell at Southwold Pier in Suffolk, sent this message: Autumn was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and Winter was shortlisted for The Orwell Prize for Books in 2018. How to be both won the Bailey’s Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. She is the author of Spring, Winter, Autumn, Public library and other stories, How to be both, Shire, Artful, There but for the, The first person and other stories, Girl Meets Boy, The Accidental, The whole story and other stories, Hotel World, Other stories and other stories, Like and Free Love.
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