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There but for the
Play sample
  • Published: 22 August 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141025193
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $28.00

There but for the

Formats & editions
Paperback
22 Aug 2012
EBook
1 Aug 2011
Audiobook
11 Feb 2021
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A warm, joyful novel that fizzes with humanity and love of language - by the bestselling author of The Accidental

'There once was a man who, one night between the main course and the sweet at a dinner party, went upstairs and locked himself in one of the bedrooms of the house of the people who were giving the dinner party . . . '

As the hours turn to days to weeks to months and the consequences of this stranger's actions ripple outwards, touching the owners, the guests, the neighbourhood then the whole country, so Ali Smith draws us into a beautiful, strange place where everyone is so much more than they at first appear.
  • Published: 22 August 2012
  • ISBN: 9780141025193
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 384
  • RRP: $28.00
Categories:

About the author

Ali Smith

Ali Smith's works of fiction include the novel Hotel World, which was short-listed for both the Orange Prize and the Booker Prize and won the Encore Award and the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award, and The Accidental, which won the Whitbread Award and was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize and the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction. Her story collections include Free Love, which won a Saltire Society First Book of the Year Award and a Scottish Arts Council Award, The Whole Story and Other Stories, and How to be Both, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2015. Born in Inverness, Scotland, Smith lives in Cambridge, England.
AS

Also by Ali Smith

Summer
Spring
Glyph
Other Stories and Other Stories
The First Person and Other Stories
The Accidental
Companion piece
See all

Praise for There but for the

Whimsically devastating. Playful, humorous, serious, profoundly clever and profoundly affecting

Guardian

Remarkable. A brilliant novel: funny, serious, always surprising, always true

The Times

I take my hat off to Ali Smith. Her writing lifts the soul

Evening Standard

A playfully serious or seriously playful novel full of wit and pleasure. Wonderful

Observer

Eccentric, adventurous, intoxicating, dazzling. This is a novel with serious ambitions that remains huge fun to read. The writing dances along

Literary Review

Poignant, empathetic, funny. A book full of kindness and compassion

Time Out

Fizzying, affectionate, sparkling. Smith presents her world view in words as fresh as lemons. A joyful read

Herald

A tour de force

Lionel Shriver, Financial Times

A virtuoso piece of writing, both funny and gripping . . . Smith is a writer with a rich array of conventional strengths

Times Literary Supplement

A must read

Toronto NOW