Spotlight on “Glyph” by Ali Smith

Praise for Glyph

“Smith embraces angular, fragmented storytelling along with slippery and allegorical messaging, though her characterizations are lively and crystal clear. . . . An abstract and mordant meditation on the long aftereffects of violence.”—Kirkus, starred review

“A clever and enjoyable companion piece to [Gliff]. . . . Smith effectively deploys narrative devices that will be familiar to readers of her fiction—precocious children, rapturous wordplay, and references to current events. . . . [An] accomplished and gifted writer.”—Publishers Weekly

“…in Glyph we see a major British writer answering the call of the day when so many others have equivocated or turned away. There is also something about Smith’s relentless focus on language that makes her particularly well suited to the task. . . . Smith’s sensibility is fine-tuned to grapple with the avalanche of passive-voice headlines, asymmetric categorisations, outright linguistic inversions and semantic absurdities that have accompanied the increasingly desperate attempts to justify the unjustifiable.”—The Guardian

In Glyph, “Smith deploys misdirection, humor, and the voice of Patch’s teenage daughter to raise issues of morality, power, and conflict. Described as a modern Virginia Woolf and as a Nobelist-in-waiting, the multi-award-winning and Man Booker–nominated Smith is a modern oracle.”—Library Journal

“Rich with [Smith’s] sparkling digressions, literary allusion, and social conscience. . . . [Glyph] celebrates the power of civil disobedience through one act of decency at a time.”—Booklist

“Glyph inevitably invites the reader to explore its relationship with Gliff (2024). . . . The duology forms a kind of textual Möbius strip—a mind-bending twisted loop with just one side—perhaps nodding back to the double strands of Smith’s 2014 novel How to be Both. . . . Like all of Smith’s works, Glyph is multifaceted. She is equally adroit at capturing the emotional nuances of family life, mapping out the larger political landscape, or beguiling the reader with joyfully witty metafictional and linguistic games. . . . Irresistible.”—The Conversation

“[Smith is] an exceptionally gifted storyteller. . . . She can bring any sentence alive with the verve of her wordplay, as her characters spark off one another in speech, echoing, patterning and discovering the energy contained in a single moment. . . . Smith’s capacity for hope is infectious, and the hope posited by these books is that storytelling can restore not just our humanity but our political responsibility and agency. . . . Between them, Gliff and Glyph offer a world of endlessly proliferating gliffs: slivers of conscience that Smith imbues with a power that is not illusory simply because it is imagined. Indeed, Smith suggests that made-up stories may, at this point, be the least illusory things we have.”—New Statesman

“A playful, melancholy story of sibling bonds, unreliable memory and the tales we use to keep the dead close. It’s also a powerful anti-war novel, with Palestine firmly in its sights.”—The Observer

“Vital. . . . Smith’s genius lies in her ability to wrap these huge, knotted ideas inside a tender, human story. . . . Powerful, playful with language, fearless with thought, and always alert to what’s possible.”—Buzz Magazine

“Moving between childhood and adulthood, reality and invention, Smith’s latest is a follow-up to 2024’s Gliff but can be read as a stand-alone. As ever with this author, the novel is playful without being slight, and alert to the present moment while committed to imagination.”—The i Paper

“Glyph follows on from Ali Smith’s 2024 novel, Gliff, which tells a story hidden in the first. The less you know about it the better as you immerse yourself back into Smith’s world.”—Radio Times