 | |
| Author | Ali Smith |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Seasonal Quartet |
| Publisher | Hamish Hamilton |
Publication date | 2020 |
| Pages | 384 |
| Awards | 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction |
| ISBN | 9780241973370 |
Summer is a 2020 novel written by the Scottish author Ali Smith, originally published by Hamish Hamilton. It is the fourth novel in her book series Seasonal Quartet. It is the winner of the 2021 Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. [1]
The world's in meltdown—and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they're living on borrowed time.
This is a story about people on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers. [2]
The briefest and slipperiest of the seasons, the one that won't be held to account - because summer won't be held at all, except in bits, fragments, moments, flashes of memory of so-called or imagined perfect summers, summers that never existed. [3]
A book should be an axe to break the frozen sea inside you.
... across the aeons and the global distances what all the peoples of the world really have in common is so many similar ways of doing humiliating and painful things to each other.
We're always looking for the full open leaf, the open warmth, the promise that we'll one day soon surely be able to lie back and have summer done to us; one day soon we'll be treated well by the world.
You've got to use every moment. Because in the blink of an eye it's past you, and you never get your time again. Forgive me, Grace, Charlotte said smiling, but I think that's rubbish. I believe we meet our times with our full and ready selves at whatever ages we are when the times happen to us. That's what it's all about. [4]
| Year | Award | Category | Result | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Orwell Prize | Political Fiction | Won | [1] |
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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2021.
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