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Gliff

From the award-winning author of the groundbreaking Seasonal Quartet

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

O brave new world, that has such people in't.

Once upon a time not very far from now, two children come home to find a line of wet red paint encircling the outside of their house.

What does it mean?

It’s a truism of our time that it’ll be the next generation who’ll sort out our increasingly toxic world.

What would that actually be like?

In a state turned hostile, a world of insiders and outsiders, what things of the past can sustain them and what shape can resistance take?

And what’s a horse got to do with any of this?

Gliff is a novel about how we make meaning and how we are made meaningless. With a nod to the traditions of dystopian fiction, a glance at the Kafkaesque, and a new take on the notion of classic, it's a moving and electrifying read, a vital and prescient tale of the versatility and variety deep-rooted in language, in nature and in human nature.

©2025 Ali Smith (P)2025 Penguin Audio

 Dystopian Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Political Science Fiction Women's Fiction

Critic reviews

Here is a voice that moves with lightness and precision, where bravery and goodness triumph in spirit over jeopardy and fear . . . Smith is good at fable-ising, and at taking a young perspective in order to question afresh systems and inherited knowledge . . . Smith’s fiction teaches with vitality that there is no such thing as a futile question
Ali Smith’s miraculous Gliff is at once a pitch-black take on the authoritarian future and a tender, hilarious and ultimately uplifting portrait of two young siblings as they battle to escape it. Full of jokes and wordplay, kindness and connection . . . A ray of hope after a year like this one (Paul Murray)
A vivid, alluringly chatty novelist capable of deft and unforeseeable sidesteps . . . Smith’s new novel is a charm . . . Smith excels at the creation of a lost, curious, intelligent mind adrift in a world of surprises and the unforeseen . . . Smith has created a gloriously strange world
Gliff is one of Smith’s most propulsive stories – a dark adventure with high stakes, which, despite its bleak subject matter, is still a sparklingly crisp read . . . Typically tantalising stuff from one of our most playful writers . . . [Smith] is as frisky as ever, peppering with puns, and making hay with homonyms imbues her characters with this linguistic exuberance . . . A new Ali Smith book is always an event (Holly Williams)
Unendingly playful [and] mind-expanding . . . Gliff draws battle lines between art, language and Big Tech . . . The meaning and meaningless of our words is an overarching theme of Smith’s oeuvre . . . Smith does not tire of the wonder of language [and] has mastered a style that is both disconcerting and utterly humane
Ali Smith stakes her claim amongst the most inventive living British writers . . . Gliff is another fizzing firework display, with conceptual shenanigans and running prose put in the service of hot-button social issues . . . a freewheeling narrative that mixes jeopardy-laden drama with restless digression on everything from agrochemicals to AI
A study, a confrontation, a rejoinder, a folksong: Ali Smith's marvellous Gliff considers the complexities of our present moment and the thorny, bridling potential of possible futures with wit, care and craft. A masterpiece of storytelling about storytelling, exploring the delighting, dangerous power of language and connectivity
As usual with Smith, the gorgeous prose will swirl in your head. Gliff is challenging and enigmatic (Martin Chilton)
Part allegory, part dystopian fiction, altogether thrilling . . . one of the most affecting stories about resistance to blind power I have read . . . quite simply the best book I’ve read this year
If Smith’s recent books were a handbook for 21st-century life, Gliff is a warning as to what will happen if we ignore their lessons
All stars
Most relevant
Perfect narration. Bri’s voice will remain with me for a long time. Should be required listening and give us all more than pause for thought. Brilliant Ali Smith at her most relevant.

Tender, beautiful, disturbing and deeply relevant.

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I need to relisten and read this as it’s quite confusing. I love the way Ali plays with ideas and language. V clever and dystopian and definitely one for the right group to discuss

Difficult one to narrate (by one of sting’s kids) so they did well

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I found the narrator on this one really hard to follow. They were very monotonous and it made the book seem so much more boring than it was. I stopped listening to this and read the rest as an ebook and absolutely loved it once I did that, I finished it in a few days! I think even if the narration was good this book doesn't translate well to audio as there's a lot of word-play with homophones etc which arent picked up on easily when listening. So for the book itself, story, characters, Ali Smith's writing etc; 10/10. However the audiobook is a definite 0/10 for me.

Great book - dull narration

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The reader completely embraced and became the main character. An intriguing and terrifying world through a young person's eyes.

Superb well read short story

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This is a great book. I wish I hadn't purchased on audible as I find the narration is so monotone it doesn't capture the inventiveness of the writing. I found it hard to stick with and have purchased a copy of the book which is brilliant.

Narration flat unfortunately

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