Glyph

Gliff #2

by Ali Smith

Glyph follows Ali Smith's 2024 novel Gliff and tells a story hidden in the first novel. Gliff is set in a near future rife with surveillance, where people can be labelled 'unverifiable' by the state. It follows siblings Briar and Rose as they attempt to survive in a world that strives to crush curiosity and meaning.

Genres: Fiction, Literary Fiction, Science Fiction, British Literature

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2026

About the author

Ali Smith is a writer, born in Inverness, Scotland, to working-class parents. She was raised in a council house in Inverness and now lives in Cambridge. She studied at Aberdeen, and then at Cambridge, for a Ph.D. that was never finished. In a 2004 interview with writing magazine Mslexia, she talked briefly about the difficulty of becoming ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a year and how it forced her to give up her job as a lecturer at University of Strathclyde to focus on what she really wanted to do: writing. She has been with her partner Sarah Wood for 17 years and dedicates all her books to her.

Reviews

[emma]

more literary novels should have sequels

[s.penkevich [hiatus-will return-miss you all]]

yesssssssssssssssssssssssss can't wait

[Lien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Can’t say I understood everything but I sure loved reading this.

[Madeline Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning! The best writing of children since Elena Ferrante's My Brilliant Friend and Yiyun Li's The Book of Goose. All about stories and storytelling, ghosts, sisters and memory. Loved!

[victoria marie]

30 october 2025 release

[Jack Bigglestone · Rating 4 out of 5]

The endlessly inventive Ali Smith returns with the sister story to 2024’s strikingly allegorical Gliff. This time she’s brining the political back home to the closely personal. We again meet two siblings helping each other through a difficult childhood - in the shadow of their quietly abusive father and the death of their mother they use their bright, powerful imaginations to tell each other a story that might help them survive. But when does a story take on a life of its own, like a ghost (sometimes a very literal and loud ghost) that won’t leave us alone?

Glyph, like its smart and charming characters, is brimful of questions like these. How does global politics intersect and interrupt our everyday lives? How do we as individuals find agency in a deeply troubled and troubling world. With competing and confusing stories all around us how do we find what is honest and true, and avoid getting stuck in someone else’s version of the narrative? Smith’s genius is in wrapping these often complex ideas into a heartfelt story about normal people, and inviting every reader to think about them with her.

Smith’s simply powerful writing never lets me down, with its joyful exploration of what words can do and where ideas can lead us. She continues to be a guiding light of courage in bleak times, always hopeful that good people paying attention to the world can make a difference.

[Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was so good! better than gliff in my opinion which i didn't get on well with. ali smith i love u

[Marisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

really loved this. didn’t realise it was a sequel because I thought glyph was gliff. but I don’t think it’s necessary to know that. just in my opinion. I will be treading gliff now though