Ali Smith was born in Inverness and published her first book in 1995.
Ali Smith possesses the perfect characteristics of the short story writer: rigorous self-discipline in the planning process, an eagle eye for condensing detail, a capacity for using the personal and individual to suggest universal truths and a skill for hinting at a wider world beyond the story. Smith alternates her writing between short stories and novels.
British Council - Literature, 2019
The judges of the Goldsmith Prize, when announcing her win with How to be both, noted:
'Passionate, compassionate, vitally inventive and scrupulously playful, Ali Smith's novels are like nothing else.'