Following her dazzling five-novel portrait of our age, the ‘Seasonal’ sequence, Ali Smith returns with the first of two novels which belong together but can be read independently. 

Gliff – a Scots or Northern word for a glimpse, a shock, a glance - will not only tell its own story but also contain within it a hidden story, to be revealed only in a second novel, Glyph – from the Greek, meaning a mark, carving or symbol - to be published a year later.  

In form and feeling, Gliff will light a new fabular and fabulist path for Ali Smith and for us through the gathering darkness of our chaotic times.