Companion piece: The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted author of How to be both

Description

The unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartet 'A story is never an answer. A story is always a question.' Here we are in extraordinary times. Is this history? What happens when we cease to trust governments, the media, each other? What have we lost? What stays with us? What does it take to unlock our future? Following her astonishing quartet of Seasonal novels, Ali Smith again lights a way for us through the nightmarish now, in a vital celebration of companionship in all its forms. 'Every hello, like every voice, holds its story ready, waiting.'

Ali Smith was born in Inverness in 1962. She is the author of Spring, Winter, Autumn, Public library and other stories, How to be both, Shire, Artful, There but for the, The first person and other stories, Girl Meets Boy, The Accidental, The whole story and other stories, Hotel World, Other stories and other stories, Like and Free Love. Hotel World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. The Accidental was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Prize. How to be both won the Bailey's Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Autumn was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2017 and Winter was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2018. Ali Smith lives in Cambridge.

Superb, radical, remarkable -- Mohsin Hamid * New York Times * A lockdown story of wayward genius... Lyrical visions alternate with fables and farce, history with Covid, in the scheme-busting fifth part of Smith's seasonal quartet -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * The Guardian * Scintillating... Companion Piece, like life, is messy, funny, sad, beautiful and mysterious -- Alex Preston * Observer * A glorious, entertaining and expert portrayal of the world we live in, seen by the most beguiling and likeable of novelistic intelligences * Telegraph * Both a standalone novel and a coda to her Seasonal quartet, Ali Smith's latest, set during the pandemic, offers a wise and humane voice for perilous times * Financial Times * Smith's way of telling a story - looping in time; switching from one fast-flicking consciousness to another; tying up radically different periods of history in a single place - and her amused delight in the flexibilities of language feel not only modernist but, better than that, modern . . . Companion Piece is very funny. It makes you look at the world afresh. For me, it turned a cold and depressing day into a bright one * The New Statesman *