How to Be Both
by Ali Smith · 2014
Literary Fiction · ranked #45 in category
Winner · The Women's Prize for Fiction, 2015
Two stories are bound together in a single novel: a grieving English teenager in the present and a 15th-century Italian fresco painter in the past. Smith's Booker Prize-winning novel exists in two editions with the stories in different orders — asking what changes about the meaning of a life story depending on where you begin.
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The verdict
- Category
- Literary Fiction
- Author
- Ali Smith
- Standing
- Essential Read
About Literary Fiction
Literary fiction sits at the intersection of fine writing and serious storytelling — novels that reward attention and stay with you long after the last page. These are the books that alter your sense of what's possible in prose.
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