Ali Smith — Gliff (2024) / Glyph (2026)

A couple of years ago, I was fortunate enough to be in the audience at the Sheldonian to see Ali Smith awarded the Bodley Medal. On that occasion she read a passage from what would later become the opening section of her next novel: Gliff (2024). I published some notes on that novel about a year later, when I finished listening to Eliot Sumner’s audiobook version. Recently, I re-read Gliff—this time in hardback—in preparation for my first reading of Smith’s new novel: Glyph (2026). In my notes on the first of the pair, having learned that there would be a follow-up with a homophonic title, I wrote: The author of a novel published in two back-to-front versions, and also of a seasonal quartet that numbers five volumes, it’s little surprise that Smith intends to extend her current project further. To mirror the first book, interrogate it, subvert it? Turns out—unsurprisingly—that it’s option D: all of the above. • • • I very much enjoyed my revisit with Gliff. Even at more than a year’s…