"Then the voice from nowhere carried on talking about Munch, like my mother of all people knew about Munch, like she knew I was looking at a picture right now, like she knew about the power crisis and the international unrest and the climate ruination in a world shed left thirty years ago. Like she knew it all."
In Ali Smiths So in the Spruce Forest, the authors deceased mother returns as a persistent voice, intent on sharing with her daughter insights into Edvard Munchs intense renderings of trees and stones charged with life. Through an imaginative essayistic format, Smith weaves together probing visual analyses, personal stories and reflections on ecology and politics, linking Munchs art to both the present moment and other realities.
Ali Smith is a celebrated Scottish author, born in Inverness in 1962. She is known for her inventive and experimental writing style, exploring themes of duality, time, love, and politics. Winner of the Goldsmiths Prize, Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction, and Orwell Prize for Political Fiction. Notable works: How to Be Both, The Accidental, and the Seasonal Quartet (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer). Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize four times and awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature in 2022.
