Girl meets boy. It's a story as old as time. But what happens when an old story meets a brand new set of circumstances? Ali Smith's re-mix of Ovid's most joyful metamorphosis is a story about the kind of fluidity that can't be bottled and sold.
It is about girls and boys, girls and girls, love and transformation, a story of puns and doubles, reversals and revelations. Girl Meets Boy is a myth of metamorphosis for the modern world.
'Girl Meets Boy is a delicate tale with a solid message of conscientious objection at its heart. It reaches a joyful conclusion in which the formalised pairing off of couples is more reminiscent of Shakespearean comedy than the gruesome imagery of Ovid. Keith enquires of his team: "How, precisely, do we bottle imagination?" Effervescent retellings such as this perhaps provide the answer.' Independent
'...Girl Meets Boy is rewriting - and then some. A glorious wide-awake dream of a book that has, right at its beating heart, one of Ovid's Metamorphoses...By the time I finished the book, my heart was beating and tears stood in my eyes, even as I had the biggest smile written all over my face...' Observer
'Ali Smith has delivered another exuberant cascade of words.' Spectator
From the beginning of her literary career, Ali Smith has enjoyed critical acclaim, winning the Saltire Society Scottish First Book of the Year Award in 1995 for Free Love and Other Stories. Her second nove,l Hotel World, set in a hotel during the course of one night, was shortlisted for both the Orange and Booker prizes. The Accidental, a critical and popular success, won the 2005 Whitbread Novel Award.
She was born in Inverness and was an English lecturer at Strathclyde University before becoming a full-time writer.
Girl Meets Boy: The Myth of Iphis is published by Canongate