'Playful bold tender . . . in Glyph we see a major British writer answering the call of the
day' Guardian Ghosts don't exist. They don't. End of. Story however. It is haunting.
Everything tells it. It all starts when Petra and her little sister Patch hear a horrifying
story from the past and find themselves making up a ghost. Is it imaginary? Is it real? Then
it all starts again thirty years later when Petra now estranged from Patch finds a phantom
horse kicking the furniture to pieces in her bedroom. What to do? She phones her sister. In a
chiaroscuro dance through our increasingly antagonistic era Glyph asks if we're attending to
the history that's made us and to the history we're making. A funny warm and clear-eyed take
on where we are now Glyph is about what our imaginations are for and how in a broken brutal
and divided time we rekindle care solidarity resistance and openness. This anti-war novel
Ali Smith's most soulful playful and vital yet is a work of lightness that goes deep to
counter the forces currently flattening the modern world. A standalone novel it's family to
Gliff (2024).
