Gliff (Winner Of The Dublin Literary Award 2026)

WINNER OF THE DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD 2026 SHORTLISTED FOR THE GORDON BOWKER VOLCANO PRIZE 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2024 'Miraculous . . . tender, hilarious and ultimately uplifting. A ray of hope' Paul Murray, Irish Times Once upon a time, not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint round the outside of their house . . . So begins the freewheeling and urgent new novel from Ali Smith - the story of two young people and a horse called Gliff, on the run from history as it takes a turn for the worse. 'A voice that moves with lightness and precision, where bravery and goodness triumph in spirit over jeopardy and fear' Financial Times 'One of Smith's most propulsive stories - a dark adventure with high stakes, which is still a sparklingly crisp read. A new Ali Smith book is always an event' Holly Williams, i 'Ali Smith's marvellous Gliff considers the complexities of our present moment and the thorny, bridling potential of possible futures with wit, care and craft. A masterpiece of storytelling about storytelling, exploring the delighting, dangerous power of language and connectivity' Eley Williams Review: Here is a voice that moves with lightness and precision, where bravery and goodness triumph in spirit over jeopardy and fear . . . Smith is good at fable-ising, and at taking a young perspective in order to question afresh systems and inherited knowledge . . . Smith's fiction teaches with vitality that there is no such thing as a futile question * Financial Times * Ali Smith's miraculous Gliff is at once a pitch-black take on the authoritarian future and a tender, hilarious and ultimately uplifting portrait of two young siblings as they battle to escape it. Full of jokes and wordplay, kindness and connection . . . A ray of hope after a year like this one -- Paul Murray * The Irish Times, 'Books of the year' * A vivid, alluringly chatty novelist capable of deft and unforeseeable sidesteps . . . Smith's new novel is a charm . . . Smith excels at the creation of a lost, curious, intelligent mind adrift in a world of surprises and the unforeseen . . . Smith has created a gloriously strange world * Daily Telegraph * Gliff is one of Smith's most propulsive stories - a dark adventure with high stakes, which, despite its bleak subject matter, is still a sparklingly crisp read . . . Typically tantalising stuff from one of our most playful writers . . . [Smith] is as frisky as ever, peppering with puns, and making hay with homonyms imbues her characters with this linguistic exuberance . . . A new Ali Smith book is always an event -- Holly Williams * i * Unendingly playful [and] mind-expanding . . . Gliff draws battle lines between art, language and Big Tech . . . The meaning and meaningless of our words is an overarching theme of Smith's oeuvre . . . Smith does not tire of the wonder of language [and] has mastered a style that is both disconcerting and utterly humane * New Statesman * Ali Smith stakes her claim amongst the most inventive living British writers . . . Gliff is another fizzing firework display, with conceptual shenanigans and running prose put in the service of hot-button social issues . . . a freewheeling narrative that mixes jeopardy-laden drama with restless digression on everything from agrochemicals to AI * Daily Mail * A study, a confrontation, a rejoinder, a folksong: Ali Smith's marvellous Gliff considers the complexities of our present moment and the thorny, bridling potential of possible futures with wit, care and craft. A masterpiece of storytelling about storytelling, exploring the delighting, dangerous power of language and connectivity * The Spectator, 'Books of the Year' * As usual with Smith, the gorgeous prose will swirl in your head. Gliff is challenging and enigmatic -- Martin Chilton * Independent * Part allegory, part dystopian fiction, altogether thrilling . . . one of the most affecting stories about resistance to blind power I have read . . . quite simply the best book I've read this year * Irish Times * If Smith's recent books were a handbook for 21st-century life, Gliff is a warning as to what will happen if we ignore their lessons * Observer * Author Biography: Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of several novels and short story collections including, The Accidental, Hotel World, How to Be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. She has been four times shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women's Prize. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.