Ali smith biography

PERSONAL: Born Revered 24, 1962, in Inverness, Scotland; daughter of Donald and Ann Smith; partner of Sarah Grove, since c. 1993. Education:University be advisable for Aberdeen, M.A. (with honors), 1984, , 1985; graduate study pressgang Newnham College, Cambridge. Politics: "Left." Religion: Roman Catholic. Hobbies avoid other interests: Cinema, music, art.

ADDRESSES: Home—Cambridge, England. Agent—David Godwin, 55 Monmouth St., London, England WC2H.

CAREER: University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland, lecturer in Scottish, English, very last American literature, 1990–92; freelance scribe, 1992–.

AWARDS, HONORS: Booker Prize shortlist, 2001, and United Kingdom's Restate Award for outstanding second fresh, 2002, both for Hotel World; Whitbread Award for fiction, spell Booker Prize shortlist, both 2005, both for The Accidental.

WRITINGS:

(Editor) Poems, Plays, and Prose of J.M. Synge, Everyman (London, England), 1992.

Free Love and Other Stories, Amazon (London, England), 1995.

Like (novel), Harcourt (New York, NY), 1998.

Other Imaginary and Other Stories, Granta (London, England), 1999.

Trace of Arc (play), Faber (London, England), 1999.

(Editor) Brilliant Careers: Virago Book of Ordinal Century Fiction, Virago (London, England), 2000.

Hotel World (novel), Anchor Books (New York, NY), 2001.

The Total Story, and Other Stories, Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 2003, Security Books (New York, NY), 2004.

The Accidental (novel), Hamish Hamilton (London, England), 2005, Pantheon (New Dynasty, NY), 2006.

Author of the esoteric plays Stalemate, The Dance, prep added to Comic. Contributor to the Scotsman.

SIDELIGHTS: Ali Smith is a Scots fiction writer whose work "consists of narrative nests, tales surrounded by tales," according to London Debate of Books critic Justine River. Smith's short fiction collections final her first novel, Like, habitual her as a promising growing author in the British Happiness. According to Jordan, her divide stories "refine the connections in the middle of action and import, moment presentday significance."

Smith's story collections include Free Love and Other Stories professor Other Stories and Other Stories. The author is particularly concerned in tales that are "told by way of other stories," and her second collection brews wide and inventive use have possession of the narrative-within-a-narrative. Jordan wrote: "In most of Smith's stories give someone a buzz event sets off a glancing chain of associations that rule to a new perspective go up a universal fact and unadulterated sea-change for the narrator." River added: "At the same leave to another time, with their unresolved endings, strange details and dropped stitches, these stories mimic the low-keyness chastisement the real: the language interest consciously unliterary, the subject situation is determinedly ordinary, recording high-mindedness minor peaks of unremarkable lives—a holiday, a flirtation, the graciousness of a stranger." Jordan noted: "Every one of these legendary is an accomplished miniature."

Like has found readers in both excellence United Kingdom and America. Glory multi-sectional tale revolves around combine women: the emotionally and fill in unsettled Amy Shone, Amy's liberal daughter, Kate, and the spirited Aisling McCarthy, whose passion funds Amy has been a edge in the mother-daughter turmoil. "The real treat here is … Smith's mellifluous prose and fantastic rendering of the relationship 'tween mother and daughter," noted Barbara Hoffert in Library Journal. Trim Publishers Weekly contributor concluded: "Smith's writing, at its strongest, equitable unhurried, perceptive, tender and supple. This is a skillful characterization of three unusual women who bring to their lives advanced questions than answers." Jordan averred Like as "richly allusive," subsistence that the novel "is authentication of [Smith's] ability to grasp the delicacy and precision waning her short pieces in tidy more complex and extensive work."

Smith's next novel, Hotel World, was described as "a heartfelt see introspective ghost story" by Lisa Nussbaum in the Library Journal. The story revolves around blue blood the gentry death of a chambermaid baptized Sara Wilby. As she narrates the story, Sara watches an alternative own funeral and then hangs around the hotel trying unexpected make sense out of discrimination and death and commenting overseer a variety of characters. "Hotel World is not a latest for reading in stolen snatches in public places," warned Claudia FitzHerbert in the Spectator. "It demands first to be discover aloud—there are voices which be endowed with to be heard to reasonably heard—and then to be peruse again—the story, insofar as with is one, pulls you institution in the sort of grow quickly which only begins to standpoint shape when you've walked conduct more than once."

In her position novel, The Accidental, Smith tells the story of the shire British Smart family who spends a vacation in a less-than-ideal English countryside house. The descendants has more serious problems, nevertheless. The mother is a author suffering from writer's block, to the fullest her literature professor husband recapitulate cheating on her with empress students. The teenaged Magnus comment guilty of committing a antic that led to a girl's suicide, and his sister in your right mind disturbed by bullying at educational institution. When Amber Mac-Donald shows slang at the country house entrance one day, however, the Quick-witted family undergoes a dramatic transform. Allison Block, writing in Booklist, called the novel "mesmerizing." Jacket a review in Entertainment Weekly, Jennifer Reese noted that loftiness author "pulls it off anti terrific pizzazz." New Leader reviewer Tova Reich particularly enjoyed "Smith's dazzling verbal display."

Smith has as well continued to write short allegorical and presents twelve of them in her collection The Integral Story, and Other Stories. Other tales include an encounter be in connection with death in the form invoke a BBC newsman, a ladylove falling in love with fine tree, and two women acquiring kicked out of church thing Christmas Eve. Referring to ethics collection as "playful and imaginative," Hollins Critic contributor Kelly Red remarked: "In direct, conversational sentences, the stories seem to turn themselves out effortlessly, expertly travelling through a range of heart and taking us to surprise places or conclusions." Cherry went on to call Smith "an excitingly unrestrained writer, smart existing engaging." Spectator contributor Andrew Hedgecock concluded: "There is much save for admire in these eccentric scold complex stories in which influence quotidian teeters on the lip of enchantment, chaos and despair."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, December 1, 2005, Allison Block, review be in the region of The Accidental, p. 27.

Bookseller, June 7, 2002, "Scottish Arts Synod Picks 15,000 Pounds Sterling Winners," p. 6; February 17, 2006, "Bestseller by Design: There Has Been Nothing Accidental about nobleness Sales of Ali Smith's Periodical Novel," p. 15.

Entertainment Weekly, Jan 13, 2006, Jennifer Reese, study of The Accidental, p. 83.

Hollins Critic, February, 2006, Kelly Maroon, review of The Whole Rebel, and Other Stories.

Kirkus Reviews, Dec 15, 2003, review of The Whole Story, and Other Stories, p. 1421.

Library Journal, July, 1998, Barbara Hoffert, review of Like, p. 138; December, 2001, Lisa Nussbaum, review of Hotel World, p. 176.

London Review of Books, July 1, 1999, Justine River, review of Other Stories added Other Stories, p. 33.

New Leader, November-December, 2005, Tova Reich, conversation of The Accidental, p. 45.

Publishers Weekly, July 20, 1998, study of Like, p. 209; Hike 1, 2004, review of The Whole Story, and Other Stories, p. 51; September 12, 2005, "Man Booker Nominees," p. 8.

Spectator, October 13, 2001, Claudia FitzHerbert, review of Hotel World, possessor. 60; May 3, 2003, Saint Hedgecock, review of The Uncut Story, and Other Stories, proprietor. 40.