Main content

Ali Smith, writer, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs.

Ali Smith is a Scottish writer. Born in Inverness in 1962, the youngest of five children by seven years, she says, "I grew up completely alone but with all the comforts of knowing I had a cushioning family structure around me - and yet I could free myself from it."

After reading English at Aberdeen and nearly completing a PhD at Cambridge, she started down an academic path, winning a lectureship at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, but she soon decided that academia wasn't for her.

She gave herself three years in which to make it as a writer. By then she had moved from writing poems, for which she had discovered an aptitude aged eight, to short stories.

Her first collection, Free Love and Other Stories, was published in 1995.

Since then she has written novels, including How to Be Both, and The Accidental, as well as plays. Nominated three times for the Booker Prize, her fiction has won numerous literary awards including the Goldsmiths Award, the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction.

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

Available now

35 minutes

Last on

Fri 11 Nov 2016 09:00
成人快手 Radio 4 FM

More episodes

Previous

Michael Bubl茅

Next

Yotam Ottolenghi

See all episodes from Desert Island Discs

Clip

Music Played

  • Julie Fowlis

    Blackbird

    • My Love Is on The High Seas (Tha Mo Ghaol Air Aird A Chuain).
    • Shoeshine.

  • Dusty Springfield

    I Only Want To Be With You

    • Dusty Springfield at Her Very Best.
    • Universal.

  • Sylvie Vartan

    Par Amour, Par Piti茅

    • Les Ann茅es RCA 1961-1983.
    • BMG.

  • Orange Juice

    Falling and Laughing

    • Can聮t Hide Your Love Forever.
    • Polydor.

  • Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli

    Daphne

    • Swingin聮 with Django Reinhardt.
    • Le Chant du Monde.

  • 螒位委魏畏 螔慰蠀纬喂慰蠀魏位维魏畏

    To Feggaraki

    • I Soferina.
    • EMI Greece.

  • Ella Fitzgerald & The Delta Rhythm Boys

    (It聮s Only a) Paper Moon

    • Classic Ella Fitzgerald 1945-1947.
    • Classics Records.

  • CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE

    • Ludwig van Beethoven

      Symphony No. 1 in C major, op. 21

      Performer: West鈥揈astern Divan Orchestra. Conductor: Daniel Barenboim.
      • Beethoven for All: Symphonies 1-9.
      • Decca.

  • BOOK CHOICE

    Metamorphoses by Ovid

  • LUXURY ITEM

    Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrara

Credits

Presenter Kirsty Young
Interviewed Guest Ali Smith
Producer Sarah Taylor

Broadcasts

  • Sun 6 Nov 2016 11:15
    成人快手 Radio 4
  • Fri 11 Nov 2016 09:00
    成人快手 Radio 4 FM

Featured in...

#LovetoRead features

Celebrate your favourite books and writers

The Desert Island Discs podcast

The Desert Island Discs podcast

Subscribe or download individual episodes.

Listen to over 2,000 programmes

Click above to browse castaways, from 1942 to today.

Articles

Read the surprising things we've learned about some stand-out castaways.

Podcast