In November 2017 Ali Smith gave the annual Muriel Spark Lecture to kick off the Muriel Spark centenary celebrations. Those lucky enough to get tickets were treated to an invigorating, joyous call-and-response between two of our best writers, both supremely talented in the playful interrogation of truth, power, art and living. In Spark, Smith finds the most formidable inspiration. In Smith, Spark has a formidable champion, one who shows us how Spark’s work resonates now more than ever.

If you want to read a regenerative blast in praise of how and why fiction matters, start here, and, as Spark writes, “Hear me to the end.