Ali Smith

Ali Smith (born in Inverness in 1962) is a British novelist, short-story writer, playwright and journalist, and one of the most recognised voices in contemporary Scottish fiction. She writes in English, though her work engages with Scottish literary traditions and with modernism, and she matters because she has reshaped the British novel of the twenty-first century by combining formal experiment with close attention to current political and social life.

She grew up in Inverness in a working-class family, in a council house. After a joint degree in English language and literature at the University of Aberdeen, she moved to Cambridge to study for a doctorate on American and Irish modernism, which she never finished because she turned to writing plays. She later taught at the University of Strathclyde, but left in 1992 owing to chronic fatigue syndrome. Her first major publication was the short-story collection Free Love and Other Stories (1995), which won the Saltire First Book of the Year award. From then on she moved between stories and novels, with work marked by play with form, overlapping voices and themes of identity, belonging, gender and time.

She is best known for the seasonal quartet beginning with Autumn (2016), followed by Winter, Spring and Summer, written as a portrait of Britain after the Brexit referendum. How to Be Both (2014), whose structure allows two different readings, is another key book. As a critic she has reflected on art in Artful (2012). Her work has won many prizes, including the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and the Orwell Prize, and in 2015 she was appointed CBE. Many critics count her among the most influential writers of her generation, and her frequent presence on international prize shortlists reflects the reach of her work.