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Autumn. Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness. That's what it felt like for Keats in 1819. How about Autumn 2016? Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. The United Kingdom is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. Hope is hand in hand with hopelessness. The seasons roll round, as ever.
Ali Smith's new novel is a meditation on a world growing ever more bordered and exclusive, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. This first in a seasonal quartet casts an eye over our own time. Who are we? What are we made of? Shakespearian jeu d'esprit, Keatsian melancholy, the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop art: the centuries cast their eyes over our own history-making. Here's where we're living.
Here's time at its most contemporaneous and its most cyclic. From the imagination of the peerless Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting series, wide-ranging in timescale and light-footed through histories, and a story about ageing and time and love and stories themselves. Here comes Autumn.
'In a country apparently divided against itself, a writer such as Smith, who makes you feel known, who seems to speak to your own private weirdnesses, is more valuable than a whole parliament of politicians.' Alex Preston, The Financial Times
'Autumn is a beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities; the “endless sad fragility” of mortal lives.' The Guardian
In an exclusive interview with Ali Smith about Autumn we talk about the joy of a novel swift in its making and what the seasons mean for her.
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
ISBN: 9780241207000
Number of pages: 272
Weight: 400 g
Dimensions: 216 x 135 x 27 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
In a country apparently divided against itself, a writer such as Smith is more valuable than a whole parliament of politicians * Financial Times *
Bold and brilliant, dealing with the body blow of Brexit to offer us something rare: hope * Jackie Kay *
Humour, grace, solace...A light-footed meditation on mortality, mutability and how to keep your head in troubled times * The Guardian *
Transcendental writing about art, death and all the dimensions of love. It's not so much 'reading between the lines' as being blinded by the light between the lines - in a good way * Deborah Levy *
The novel of the year is obviously Ali Smith's Autumn, which managed the miracle of making at least a kind of sense out of post-Brexit Britain * The Observer *
Autumn is a beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities * The Guardian *
Experimental, thematically complex, associative, time-juggling, powered by a crazed and energetic curiosity * Sunday Times *
Pure literary magic * Mail on Sunday *
Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting. Long may she Remain that way * The Times *
A wonderfully risky project...an ambitious, multi-layered creation...an energising and uplifting story * The Daily Telegraph *
A moving exploration of the intricacies of the imagination, a sly teasing-out of a host of big ideas and small revelations, all hovering around a timeless quandary: how to observe, how to be * The New York Times *
I wonder: How does she manage to so wonderfully weave in and out of time, to layer time, while creating something that feels like it was written this morning after she read today's newspaper? * PBS News Hour *
Publisher's description. Autumn 2016: the UK is in pieces, divided by a historic once-in-a-generation summer. Love is won, love is lost. The seasons roll round as ever. From the imagination of the peerless Ali Smith comes a shape-shifting, light-footed, time-travelling novel. This is a story about right now, this minute; about ageing and time and love and stories themselves. Here comes Autumn. * Penguin *
Transcendental writing about art, death, political lies, trees and all the dimensions of love * Deborah Levy *
Unbearably moving, shrewd and dreamy, playful, strange [and] soulful...[An] assessment of what it means to be alive...Ali Smith has a beautiful mind and where her mind goes, you want to follow...I am struck by, and stuck on, Autumn. * New York Times *
Fantastic writing, big ideas and generosity of spirit * Cressida Connolly *
The first serious Brexit novel * Financial Times *
She is, of course, Scotland's Nobel laureate-in-waiting * Observer *
Autumn is a beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities * The Guardian *
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