Summer: Winner of the Orwell Prize for Fiction

Brought to you by Penguin.

A once-in-a-generation series, Ali Smith's Seasonal quartet is a tour-de-force about love, time, art, politics, and how we live now.

In the present, Sacha knows the world's in trouble. Her brother Robert just is trouble. Their mother and father are having trouble. Meanwhile the world's in meltdown - and the real meltdown hasn't even started yet. In the past, a lovely summer. A different brother and sister know they're living on borrowed time.

This is a story about people on the brink of change. They're family, but they think they're strangers. So: where does family begin? And what do people who think they've got nothing in common have in common?

Summer.

Discover all four instalments: Autumn, Winter, Spring and Summer. Ali Smith's new novel, Companion piece.

'A maestra's portrait of her age . . . remarkable' Guardian

'The first great coronavirus novel - a book to savour, a literary tour de force' Evening Standard

'Exquisite. Smith is in a class of her own' Nicola Sturgeon

'An astonishing finale to a prescient series . . . Ali Smith brilliantly weaves strands of joy and celebration to end her Seasonal Quartet' Irish Times

© Ali Smith 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026