Recently, just before lunch with the Scottish author Ali Smith, at Moro, a beloved North African and Mediterranean place in London’s Exmouth Market, I locked myself out of my new phone.

Ali Smith is an author, playwright, academic and journalist. Her work includes the 2014 novelHow to Be Both and the seasonal quartet, ending with Summer (2020). Sixty years ago, the French writer’s ...

In this, her fourth collection of short stories, Ali Smith sets out her philosophical stall as quickly as she can. Her opening tale, ‘True Short Story’, ponders the very nature of the form ...