But in How to be both, what was once a secondary concern is front and center : the creation of art, and its radical and transformative power. Form following content, this revolutionary novel was published in two versions, one with each part leading the thread.Īuthor of the novels Artful, There but for the, Free Love, Like, Hotel World, and The Accidental, and story collections Other stories and other stories, The whole story and other stories, and The First person and other stories, Ali Smith has long concerned herself with the role of art/the artist in culture. Part love story, part historical fiction, and threaded with mystery, the novel is comprised of part One and part One, each foregrounded with a visual element (a surveillance camera, an artful pair of eyes) suggesting themes of surveillance and sight, ‘looking’-all themes Smith fans will have encountered in her earlier works. A triumph of doubling, deception and discovery, How to be both considers the twin concepts of art and beauty alongside questions of justice, ‘moral conundrums’ and sexuality. In her 2014 Man Booker Prize shortlisted novel How to be both, Ali Smith twists two narratives, that of a troubled teenager in contemporary Britain and that of a 1460s Renaissance fresco painter, into a single dazzling story.
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