The Conversation: Ali Smith

(Tuesday 30th June 2026)

When watching live, you can increase the quality of the video to 720p by pressing the ‘settings cog’ button on the video menu. You can also unmute and change the volume. Please refresh the page if the video does not initially show.

The Way We Live Now

A conversation with the sublimely gifted writer about her two latest novels Gliff and Glyph, that continue her extraordinary sequence of books exploring contemporary life and language. 

“Ali Smith’s miraculous Gliff is at once a pitch-black take on the authoritarian future and a tender, hilarious and ultimately uplifting portrait of two young siblings as they battle to escape it.” – Irish Times. 

Glyph is “ a playful, melancholy story of sibling bonds, unreliable memory and the tales we use to keep the dead close. It’s also a powerful anti-war novel, with Palestine firmly in its sights” ― Observer.

Chaired by Peter Florence.