Ali Smith

Standard Name: Smith, Ali
Birth Name: Alison Smith
Ali Smith is a contemporary Scottish author of fiction, drama, and criticism, remarkable for her love of wordplay and her exuberant writing style. Her short stories and novels contain many literary references, primed by Smith's background in academia, but also involve a fluid and far from academic approach to considerations of language, gender, and reality. Several of her works involve queer themes (a fair few of her characters, especially in her short fiction, appear genderless) and resituate the mythic, Gothic, and fantastic within modern Britain. Her latest works are especially noteworthy for their experiments with temporality.
Photograph of Ali Smith, seated at a table, with books, a water jug, and a cup in front of her. She appears to be at a book signing, and she is holding a pen in one hand, which is resting against her chin. She is wearing a white collared shirt dark rectangular-framed glasses, and her brown is shoulder-length with bangs.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Textual Production Nan Shepherd
Unpublished poetry by NS is held in her archive at the National Library of Scotland , Manuscripts.27438-45. She disliked talking about her writing, and when asked about it she often deflected inquiries in an almost...
Reception Nan Shepherd
NS 's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography has been written by the practising Scottish novelist Ali Smith . In 2016 it was announced that her image had been chosen to appear on...
Occupation Nan Shepherd
NS was quick-witted, jovial, and passionate about her craft: qualities that lent themselves naturally to teaching. She began lecturing in English at Aberdeen Training Centre for Teachers (later Aberdeen College of Education) in 1916, though...
Reception Sylvia Townsend Warner
The collection was acclaimed. A critic in the Nation noted: Warner is a poet of great and consistent achievement.
Warner, Sylvia Townsend. Sylvia Townsend Warner: Selected Poems. Carcanet Press.
back cover
Other reviewers were equally enthusiastic, praising her craftsmanship, musical ear, and the great variety...
Friends, Associates Sarah Waters
An interviewer reported that SWmoves in a circle of up-and-coming women writers, including Stella Duffy , Ali Smith , Charlotte Mendelson , and Joanna Briscoe .
McCrum, Robert. “What lies beneath”. Guardian.com.uk.
Textual Production Jeanette Winterson
Her contributors included Ali Smith on Beethoven 's Fidelio, Anne Enright on Dvorak 's Rusalka, Jackie Kay on Janacek 's The Makropulos Case, Joanna Trollope on Donizetti 's L'Elisir d'Amore, Kate Atkinson

Timeline

No timeline events available.

Texts

Smith, Ali. Other Stories and Other Stories. Granta Books, 1999.
Smith, Ali. “Portrait of My Father”. Granta, Vol.
104
, p. 36.
Smith, Ali. Public Library and Other Stories. Hamish Hamilton, 2015.
Smith, Ali. Shire. Full Circle Editions, 2013.
Smith, Ali. Spring. Hamish Hamilton, 2019.
Smith, Ali. The Accidental. Hamish Hamilton, 2005.
Smith, Ali. “The detainee’s tale by Ali Smith: ’I thought you would help me’”. The Guardian.
Smith, Ali. The First Person and Other Stories. Pantheon Books, 2008.
Smith, Ali et al. “The Green Stuff”. The Guardian.
Smith, Ali. The Seer. Faber & Faber, 2006.
Smith, Ali. The Whole Story and Other Stories. Hamish Hamilton, 2003.
Smith, Ali. There But For The. Penguin, 2011.
Smith, Ali. Winter. Hamish Hamilton, 2017.