Gliff A Novel

by Smith, Ali

• ISBN13: 9780593701560
• ISBN10: 0593701569
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-02-04
• Publisher: Pantheon

Summary

A moving and genre-bending story about our era-spanning search for meaning and knowing

Set in the present day, Gliff begins when a young woman inherits a suitcase from her dead grandmother, with no information other than the word "GLIFF" on the luggage tag. Unsure whether it's someone's name or a description of the contents, she opens it to find a thin piece of collaged parchment—a mix of worn waxy fabric and a dry and brittle substance she can't place.
      From a Scottish word meaning a "transient moment" or "faint glimpse," Gliff explores how and why we endeavor to make a mark on the world. In a time when western industry wants to reduce us to algorithms and data—something easily categorizable and predictable—Smith shows us why our dimensionality matters more than ever.

Author Biography

ALI SMITH is the author of many works of fiction, including, most recently, Companion Piece, the "Seasonal Quartet," Public library and other stories, and How to be both, which won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, the Goldsmiths Prize, and the Costa Novel of the Year Award. Her work has four times been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. Most recently, she won the George Orwell Prize for Fiction for Summer. Born in Inverness, Scotland, she lives in Cambridge, England.