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 . . .
Autumn 2016: Daniel is a century old. Elisabeth, born in 1984, has her eye on the future. And the UK 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 filling up with borders, on what richness and worth are, on what harvest means. From Shakespearian jeu d'esprit, via Keatsian melancholy and the sheer bright energy of 1960s Pop Art, this first in a quartet of novels casts an eye over our own time, asking who we are, where we are, right now.
Here is time, ever-changing, ever cyclical. Here comes Autumn.
“A beautiful, poignant symphony of memories, dreams and transient realities”
Guardian
“Bravura, brilliant and unsettling . . . leaving you marvelling”
Financial Times
“Fantastic”
Spectator
“A terrific writer. There is an awful lot to lift the soul, not least Smith's extraordinary playful use of language”
Daily Mail
“Undoubtedly Smith at her best. Puckish, yet elegant; angry, but comforting”
The Times
“Bold and brilliant”
Observer
“Smith straddles the elegiac and the celebratory through this glorious novel”
Scotsman