Companion piece

THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

The unmissable new work from Ali Smith, following the dazzling Man Booker-shortlisted Seasonal quartet

One day in post-Brexit, mid-pandemic Britain, artist Sandy Gray receives an unexpected phone call from university acquaintance Martina Pelf. Martina is calling Sandy to ask for help with a mysterious question she's been left with after she's spent half a day locked in a room by border control officials for no reason she can fathom:

'Curlew or curfew? You choose.'

And what's any of this got to do with the story of a young and talented blacksmith hounded from her trade and her home more than five hundred years ago?

Ali Smith's novel takes wing, soaring between our atomised present and our medieval past in the hope we can open our locked down homes and selves to all the other times, other species, other histories, other possibilities.

'[An] entertaining and expert portrayal of the world we live in, seen by the most beguiling and likeable of novelistic intelligences' Telegraph

'[Companion piece] makes you look at the world afresh. For me, it turned a cold and depressing day into a bright one' New Statesman

LONGLISTED FOR THE GORDON BURN PRIZE 2022

SHORTLISTED FOR THE HIGHLAND BOOK PRIZE 2022

Reviews

It is remarkable to be alive at the same time as Scottish writer Ali Smith . . .Smith is intellectually rigorous yet democratic, warm and - crucially - playful