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How to Be Both

How to Be Both is a 2014 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith, comprising two intertwined narratives: one following a young Italian fresco painter in the 1460s who disguises herself as male to pursue her craft, and the other depicting a Cambridge teenager grappling with her mother's death and personal identity in the present day.^[1]^[2] The work employs an innovative dual structure, with half of the printed copies beginning with the historical section and the other half with the contemporary one, emphasizing themes of duality in art, perception, gender, and time.^[1] Published on 28 August 2014 by Hamish Hamilton in the UK and Pantheon Books in the US, the novel draws inspiration from the real-life Renaissance artist Francesco del Cossa, reimagining elements of his life while paralleling it with modern experiences of loss and artistic expression.^[1] It received widespread critical acclaim for its linguistic playfulness and structural experimentation, earning shortlistings for the Man Booker Prize in 2014 and the Folio Prize in 2015.^[1]^[3] Among its notable achievements, How to Be Both won the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize for innovative fiction, the 2014 Costa Novel Award, and the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction, marking Smith as the first author to win the latter with a book also shortlisted for the Booker.^[3]^[4] These accolades underscore the novel's success in blending historical fiction with postmodern techniques, though some critics noted its challenging, non-linear style may demand active reader engagement.^[2]

Background

Writing and inspiration

Ali Smith's inspiration for How to Be Both originated from a reproduction of a fresco by the 15th-century Italian painter Francesco del Cossa, featured in the April 2013 issue of Frieze magazine.^[5] The image depicted a resilient figure in rags from del Cossa's Mese di Marzo (Month of March, circa 1469), part of the Hall of the Months in Ferrara's Palazzo Schifanoia.^[5] ^[6] Prompted by this, Smith visited the Palazzo in 2013, shortly after its partial reopening following 2012 earthquakes measuring 5.9 and 5.8 on the Richter scale, to view the frescoes firsthand.^[5] Del Cossa, born in the 1430s, contributed to the Palazzo's decorations but departed Ferrara after disputing payment with Duke Borso d'Este, later dying in his early 40s during a plague outbreak.^[5] Smith's research drew on sparse historical records of the artist, supplemented by internet searches, translations of Italian texts, and a 1960s catalogue on fresco techniques, particularly underdrawings known as sinopie, which informed the novel's layered structure mimicking fresco composition.^[5] ^[6] The writing process began after Smith abandoned an initial draft of a different novel following four months of work, deeming it unsuitable, and pivoted in 2013 to explore del Cossa's era with fresh curiosity akin to a child's perspective.^[6] This shift, completed by 2014, integrated empirical details from Renaissance art history with Smith's established experimental style, emphasizing the dual visibility in frescoes—surface imagery over preparatory layers—as a structural influence for pairing historical and contemporary elements.^[5] ^[6]

Publication history

How to Be Both was first published in hardcover in the United Kingdom by Hamish Hamilton, an imprint of Penguin Books, in 2014, with ISBN 9780241146828, and in the United States by Pantheon Books on December 2, 2014, with ISBN 9780375424106.^[7]^[8] The initial editions featured a publishing experiment in which two variants were produced in approximately equal proportions, one opening with the contemporary narrative and the other with the historical narrative, with copies randomized in distribution to bookstores.^[2] Paperback editions followed, including a US release by Anchor Books on October 13, 2015, with ISBN 9780307275257.^[9] Following its shortlisting for the Man Booker Prize in 2014, the book sold nearly 1,300 copies in the UK.^[10] Its win of the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2015 led to a significant sales increase.^[11] The novel has been made available in e-book formats through major retailers and as an audiobook, with no major reprints or new editions reported through 2025.^[9] It has been translated into several languages, though specific counts vary by publisher records.^[12]

Narrative Structure

Dual narratives

How to Be Both features two interdependent narratives that operate in a non-linear fashion, connected primarily through recurring motifs of perception and artistic creation rather than sequential plot progression. One narrative unfolds in present-day England, while the other is situated in mid-15th-century Ferrara, Italy, allowing the stories to resonate across centuries via shared concerns with visual interpretation and layered meanings.^[13]^[2] The contemporary section utilizes conventional prose rhythms blended with idiomatic contemporary dialogue, facilitating a direct, introspective voice attuned to modern sensory experiences. In contrast, the historical section employs a looser, stream-like syntax with period-inflected vocabulary and fragmented associations, simulating the associative thought processes of a Renaissance-era consciousness unbound by later narrative conventions.^[13]^[14] Each narrative spans roughly equivalent lengths—around 150-200 pages depending on formatting—establishing parity that disrupts expectations of a dominant storyline and encourages readers to perceive the whole as a unified, bidirectional structure where neither precedes the other in essence. This balance underscores the novel's formal experiment in simultaneity, mirroring fresco techniques where underlayers and surfaces coexist without fixed hierarchy.^[15]^[16]

Edition variants and distribution

The novel was released in two distinct print editions by Hamish Hamilton in the United Kingdom on July 24, 2014, with approximately half the initial print run beginning with the historical narrative ("eyes" section, focused on Francesco del Cossa) and the other half starting with the contemporary narrative ("camera" section, focused on George).^[2]^[6] Both editions feature identical external bindings and cover designs, ensuring that the sequence of narratives is undisclosed until the book is opened, thereby randomizing the reader's initial encounter with the text.^[6] This dual printing approach was designed by author Ali Smith and the publisher to materially enact the novel's thematic exploration of duality and simultaneity, emphasizing that neither narrative order constitutes a "correct" or privileged reading path.^[6] Smith has stated that the randomization mirrors the book's conceptual framework, where perspectives coexist without hierarchy, compelling readers to engage with the material form as an integral element of interpretation rather than a neutral container.^[6] In distribution, copies were shipped to retailers in mixed batches without labeling by variant, simulating a literal coin-flip for purchasers and aligning with the publisher's goal of subverting conventional linear expectations in book production.^[2] The U.S. edition, published by Pantheon Books on December 2, 2014, followed a similar model with randomized sequences across printings. Digital editions, available from launch via platforms like Kindle, present a fixed order—typically starting with the contemporary narrative—but allow readers to navigate sections non-sequentially if desired, though without the physical surprise of print variants.^[17] No bundled sets offering both sequences were produced in subsequent years, and print runs post-2014 reverted to single-sequence editions in paperback reprints.

Plot Summary

Contemporary narrative (George)

The contemporary narrative follows Georgia, nicknamed George, a 16-year-old schoolgirl in Cambridge, England, set in the early 2010s following her mother's sudden death. Her mother, Carol Martineau, an economist and online activist known for creating subversive digital content, succumbed to an anaphylactic reaction to a common antibiotic at age 50, about a year before the primary events. George lives with her father, whose grief manifests in heavy drinking and passive television viewing, and her younger brother Henry, whom she routinely comforts and cares for amid the family's emotional strain.^[18]^[19] George often absents herself from school, filling time with ritualistic dances and video watching, while recalling a pre-death family trip to Ferrara, Italy, to view historical frescoes. She becomes fixated on H, a local musician and artist, secretly recording H's performances and subsequently surveilling H's Cambridge residence and daily routines. This obsession stems from an earlier encounter, prompting George to track H's movements covertly. At school, George develops a close friendship with classmate Helena Fisker, a bold student of mixed heritage who aids her with revision and school projects.^[19]^[2] Significant episodes include George and H meeting in a Cambridge multi-story car park for an impromptu musical session, followed by collaborative work on academic tasks where George shares personal recordings. George travels to London's National Gallery to examine Renaissance artworks on temporary exhibit, an outing tied to her late mother's interests, during which she spots and trails a woman named Lisa Goliard—whom her mother had suspected of intelligence surveillance due to activist suspicions—back to a Cambridge address. These interactions occur against the backdrop of ongoing family reflections, including George's management of household issues like a leaking ceiling reported to her father.^[19]^[18]

Historical narrative (Francesco del Cossa)

The historical narrative of How to Be Both reimagines the life of Francesco del Cossa, a real Ferrarese painter active in the mid-15th century, as that of a girl named Francesca who disguises herself as a boy to train and work as an artist under the patriarchal constraints of Renaissance Italy. Born around the 1430s near Bologna but raised in Ferrara, Francesco's father, a carpenter named Christofano, notices her precocious talent for drawing patterns and forms during childhood, such as observing concentric ripples expanding in a puddle of horse urine, which sparks early meditations on infinity and artistic representation. To enable her apprenticeship in his workshop, the father agrees to teach her only if she binds her chest, cuts her hair, and assumes a male identity, a disguise she maintains to navigate guild restrictions and societal norms barring women from professional artistry.^[20]^[2] As a young male-presenting apprentice in 1460s Ferrara, Francesco hones her skills through observation and sketching, frequenting local brothels not for solicitation but to capture the female form in motion and repose, prioritizing draftsmanship over carnality when a friend introduces her to a courtesan. This period includes formative encounters, such as with a dark-skinned girl named Isotta, which awaken sensual and creative impulses, fueling her evolving style of vivid, allegorical compositions. By the late 1460s, her reputation grows, leading to a commission from Duke Borso d'Este for the Palazzo Schifanoia, the Este family's pleasure palace in Ferrara; there, around 1469–1470, Francesco paints the upper tiers of the Sala dei Mesi fresco cycle, depicting the zodiac triumphs for March (Aries), April (Taurus), and May (Gemini) with dynamic figures blending classical mythology, astrology, and courtly pomp.^[2]^[21] Artistic rivalries emerge, particularly with Cosmè Tura, the duke's favored painter whose drier style contrasts Francesco's fluid vitality; dissatisfied with meager compensation—receiving only 30 lire per figure versus Tura's 40—Francesco pens a bold 1470 letter to the duke defending her superior execution and demanding parity, which secures a raise but highlights her precarious position as an upstart. Following completion of the Schifanoia work, tensions with patrons and peers prompt her departure from Ferrara circa 1470, relocating to Bologna where she undertakes further commissions, including altarpieces and portraits, until her death around 1478. Smith's account draws on scant historical records of del Cossa's career—primarily payment documents and surviving frescoes—but fabricates the gender disguise and intimate vignettes, liberties enabled by the artist's obscure early biography and sparse personal archives.^[20]^[21]

Characters

George and associated figures

George, the central figure in the contemporary narrative, is a 16-year-old girl living in Cambridge, England, whose full name is Georgina but who is known as George. Following the sudden death of her mother, she cuts her hair short and adopts a boyish style of dress, leading others to frequently mistake her for a male teenager.^[2]^[16] She demonstrates proficiency in computer hacking, using these skills to navigate online environments and investigate aspects of her mother's past.^[22] Throughout the story, George's development involves heightened observation of her surroundings and imitation of others' mannerisms as a means of engaging with the world.^[2] George's mother, a politically engaged woman involved in online subversive activities as part of a group called the "subvert interventionists," dies unexpectedly from a heart condition, an event that occurred prior to the main timeline set around 2012.^[22] Her father's identity as a musician influences family dynamics, with his attempts at normalcy contrasting George's withdrawn behavior.^[23] Her older brother, Davy, serves as a more socially integrated sibling, participating in school life and providing occasional counterpoints to George's introspective isolation through their sibling interactions.^[24] Lisa Goliard, a friend of George's mother who claims expertise in art history, plays a key role by accompanying George on a trip to Italy to view frescoes linked to the novel's historical narrative, facilitating George's exposure to visual art amid her personal circumstances.^[23] These figures interact with George primarily through everyday family routines and occasional outings, underscoring her tendency toward solitary pursuits like digital exploration and art viewing against their more conventional engagements.^[16] The contemporary setting draws on the context of the 2011 English riots, referenced in relation to events affecting George's social circle.^[6]

Francesco del Cossa and historical figures

In Ali Smith's novel How to Be Both, Francesco del Cossa is portrayed as a prodigious young painter from Ferrara who, after her mother's death, adopts male attire to apprentice under her father and evade societal restrictions on women in the arts, eventually gaining employment at the Este court.^[2] This fictional cross-dressing enables Francesco's immersion in fresco techniques, observational acuity, and ambitious pursuits, including rendering vibrant astrological and mythological scenes for the Palazzo Schifanoia, where she captures the interplay of human figures, deities, and zodiac symbols with innovative perspective and detail.^[20] The narrative emphasizes her personal drive, artistic rivalries, and encounters in settings like brothels, where she sketches rather than indulges, highlighting themes of disguise and creativity over historical veracity.^[2] Historically, Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430–c. 1477) was a male artist of the Ferrarese school, born in Ferrara as the son of stone-carver Cristoforo del Cossa, with no records indicating gender disguise or female identity; he trained in a family of artisans and rose through court patronage without documented personal cross-dressing.^[25] His documented work includes the Palazzo Schifanoia frescoes (c. 1469–1470), where he independently painted the months of March (Triumph of Minerva), April (Triumph of Venus), and May, integrating three-layered compositions of triumphant deities, zodiac signs (Aries, Taurus, Gemini), and Ferrarese court life to evoke astrological and seasonal cycles under Borso d'Este's commission.^[26] Del Cossa's frustration with remuneration is authentically reflected in his preserved letter of March 25, 1470, to Borso d'Este, protesting low pay relative to rivals like Cosmè Tura and demanding fairer compensation for his superior contributions, which prompted a raise but led him to leave Ferrara for Bologna by 1470.^[27] Supporting characters in the novel's historical strand include Francesco's father, depicted as a woodcutter who imparts rudimentary carving and drawing skills before her artistic ascent, contrasting the real del Cossa's stonemason father who likely influenced his early sculptural training.^[28] The Este patrons, led by Borso d'Este, appear as demanding yet culturally ambitious employers funding the Schifanoia project to symbolize ducal power through humanist-astrological iconography, aligning with historical records of the court's lavish artistic investments.^[25] Rivals such as Tura are woven in as competitive peers whose styles—more angular and gothic—underscore Francesco's fluid, lifelike innovations, though the novel amplifies personal tensions beyond the factual collaborative dynamics among Ferrarese painters.^[26] These fictional embellishments, including gender fluidity, serve Smith's narrative linkage across eras but diverge from archival evidence limited to del Cossa's professional output and correspondence, with no attestation of disguise in 15th-century sources.^[29]

Themes and Motifs

Art, observation, and reality

In Ali Smith's How to Be Both, the motif of art underscores the tension between empirical observation and preconceived assumptions, portraying visual perception as a process of uncovering layered realities. Francesco del Cossa's narrative centers on the fresco technique, where pigments applied to freshly plastered walls bind chemically to create permanent, multifaceted images that evolve in interpretation over time. This method, historically employed by del Cossa in the Palazzo Schifanoia frescoes (circa 1469–1470), integrates naturalistic human figures with astrological and mythological elements, prioritizing depictions grounded in observable phenomena like light, anatomy, and spatial depth over mere decorative illusion.^[21]^[30] Such techniques reflect a commitment to causal fidelity in representation, where the artist's gaze dissects the physical world—trees as both static forms and dynamic motions—to reveal underlying truths invisible to superficial viewing.^[31] This painterly scrutiny parallels the observational acuity in George's storyline, where her persistent watching of surroundings challenges rote perceptions. George's encounters with visual media and architecture echo Francesco's method of seeing dual states—objects as simultaneously solid and fluid—fostering a critique of assumptive sight that overlooks contextual depths. For instance, the novel draws on del Cossa's Ferrara frescoes, where layered compositions (e.g., foreground triumphs overlaying cosmic backdrops) demand iterative scrutiny to discern integrated narratives, much as George's evolving gaze uncovers interconnections across disparate scenes.^[32]^[33] Ultimately, the motif posits art as a corrective to perceptual shortcuts, advocating layered empirical engagement over singular, illusory fixes. By invoking del Cossa's realism—evident in the lively, proportionate figures of the Sala dei Mesi—the narrative illustrates how true observation bridges temporal divides, rendering reality not as fixed but as a composite of verifiable strata discernible through sustained, unassuming attention.^[31]

Gender, disguise, and identity

In Ali Smith's How to Be Both (2014), the historical narrative reimagines the 15th-century Italian fresco painter Francesco del Cossa as a biological female who adopts a male disguise following the death of her brother, enabling her to pursue artistic training and commissions in a patriarchal society that barred women from such professions.^[34]^[35] This fictional device allows Francesco to navigate guild apprenticeships and court patronage in Ferrara and Bologna, where male identity grants access to workspaces and social legitimacy otherwise denied to women.^[36] The disguise manifests practically through altered clothing, mannerisms, and suppression of female physical development, serving as a causal mechanism for socioeconomic agency rather than an expression of innate gender incongruence.^[37] The contemporary narrative echoes this through the protagonist George (short for Georgina), a teenage girl whose androgynous name and observational mimicry of others' behaviors evoke fluid self-presentation amid adolescent identity formation.^[18] Unlike Francesco's overt cross-dressing for survival, George's ambiguity arises from linguistic play—her name interchangeably male and female—and subtle performative adaptations in social interactions, linking the narratives thematically without direct disguise.^[28] Traditional interpretations frame Francesco's disguise as a pragmatic adaptation to era-specific barriers, rooted in biological sex differences that structured Renaissance labor markets, where women's exclusion from guilds stemmed from physical demands of fresco work and cultural norms enforcing domestic roles.^[34] Historical records of the real Francesco del Cossa (c. 1430–1477), documented in ducal payments and correspondence for the Palazzo Schifanoia frescoes, contain no evidence of gender variance or disguise, indicating Smith's portrayal as speculative fiction unbound by empirical biography.^[34]^[28] Contemporary readings, often from queer theory perspectives, project fluidity onto Francesco's narrative, interpreting the disguise as proto-transgender embodiment or subversion of binary norms, yet such views risk anachronism by overlooking the rigid enforcement of sex-segregated roles in 15th-century Italy, where cross-dressing carried severe legal and social penalties under sumptuary laws without evidence of identity-driven motivations.^[38]^[39] Biological essentialist critiques emphasize that disguise alters external perception but not underlying sexual dimorphism, which causally determines reproductive roles and physical capacities influencing vocational access; thus, Francesco's strategy prioritizes opportunity over ontological redefinition.^[40] No primary sources from del Cossa's era suggest inherent gender dysphoria, underscoring the novel's use of disguise as a narrative tool for exploring contingency rather than historical verity.^[34]

Grief, memory, and temporal linkage

George's grief following her mother's abrupt death from an allergic reaction manifests as a profound disruption to routine and perception, with memories of intimate maternal interactions—such as decoding puzzles or traveling to Italy—serving as anchors against oblivion, often invoked through fixation on historical artworks.^[41] This loss propels a retreat into internal reverie, reflecting empirical patterns where bereavement impairs executive function and temporal sequencing, as documented in bereavement studies showing heightened rumination and fragmented recall.^[42] Francesco, likewise, contends with maternal bereavement and sibling hardships in 15th-century Ferrara, where such deprivations catalyze a drive toward artistic vocation, transforming absence into productive evasion of prescribed roles like nunhood.^[41] The narratives' interplay establishes loss as a causal connector, with Francesco's posthumous vantage observing George's mourning, implying memory's capacity to forge transhistorical bonds independent of strict chronology.^[41] Smith's bifurcated editions—one commencing with each storyline—enact this via structural reciprocity, demanding cross-referential reading akin to reconstructing non-linear memory traces, where grief warps time into suspended loops rather than progressive arcs.^[42] Such design underscores causal realism in mourning: not a sentimental metamorphosis but a persistent cognitive fracture, evidenced by George's numb detachment and Francesco's opportunistic resilience amid scarcity.^[43] Critiques highlight the denouements' ambiguity—leaving spectral presences unresolved—as potentially artistic deferral of grief's intractable terminus, prioritizing metaphysical ambiguity over verifiable closure, though this mirrors documented variability in long-term bereavement trajectories where integration remains incomplete for many.^[41] ^[42] This approach avoids romantic idealization, privileging grief's empirical inertia: a force that alters trajectories without erasing underlying voids, as opposed to narratives implying redemptive harmony.^[43]

Reception and Analysis

Awards and recognition

How to Be Both was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2014, selected by a panel of judges chaired by AC Grayling from a longlist of 13 novels, recognizing it among six finalists for its innovative structure and literary merit.^[1]^[44] That same year, the novel won the Goldsmiths Prize, awarded by a panel including critics and academics for fiction that "breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the form," with judges praising its dual narratives and experimental approach.^[45] It also received the Costa Novel Award as part of the 2014 Costa Book Awards, determined by a judging panel including authors and booksellers for outstanding achievement in the novel category.^[44] Additionally, it was named Scottish Book of the Year by the Saltire Society in 2014, honoring works by Scottish authors through a process emphasizing cultural and literary impact.^[46] In 2015, How to Be Both won the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction—now known as the Women's Prize for Fiction—with a panel chaired by Shami Chakrabarti selecting it from a shortlist of six for its bold experimentation and thematic depth, awarding £30,000.^[4]^[47]^[3]

Critical reception

Upon its release in 2014, How to Be Both garnered significant praise from major literary outlets for its innovative dual narrative structure, blending a contemporary story with a Renaissance artist's perspective, and for Smith's witty linguistic experimentation.^[2] The Guardian hailed it as a "dazzling dual-narrative novel" that explores interconnected stories through chance-determined textual order, emphasizing themes of observation and artistic subversion.^[2] Similarly, The New York Times commended the overlapping motifs of art's subversive power and gender fluidity, noting the novel's success in linking disparate eras through shared human experiences.^[18] NPR described it as combining "inventive structural trickery" with "warm, sardonic writing," highlighting the parallel tales of bereavement and artistic creation as both playful and profound.^[13] Critics across aggregators like Book Marks assigned it a "rave" rating from 16 reviews, reflecting broad approval for its genre-bending conversation between historical and modern truths.^[35] However, not all responses were unqualified; some noted the experimental archaic style in the Francesco del Cossa section as occasionally opaque, potentially alienating readers unaccustomed to such linguistic shifts.^[48] Independent reviewers, including those skeptical of overt modern parallels to historical gender disguise, questioned whether the novel's fluidity imposed contemporary ideological lenses on ahistorical figures, though such views remained marginal amid dominant acclaim.^[48] The novel's reception solidified its place in high literary esteem, as evidenced by its ranking at #99 on The New York Times' 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list, underscoring enduring appreciation for its formal ambition despite pockets of critique regarding accessibility. Initial UK sales exceeded expectations for experimental fiction, contributing to commercial viability alongside critical buzz.^[49]

Interpretations and critiques

Scholars have interpreted the novel's dual narrative structure, published in two alternating editions in 2014, as a postmodern embrace of multiplicity, wherein the interchangeable halves—set in 15th-century Italy and contemporary England—challenge linear causality and fixed identities, positing that meaning emerges from relational contingencies rather than singular truths.^[50] This view aligns with postcritical reading practices, as articulated in analyses emphasizing the text's visual epistemology, where sight disrupts binary oppositions like past/present and male/female, fostering an affective, non-hierarchical engagement over detached interpretation.^[51] Such readings draw on John Berger's influence, framing the protagonists' "ways of seeing" as tools for subjective reconstruction across temporal divides, thereby privileging fluid interconnections over essentialist anchors.^[52] In contrast, essentialist interpretations stress the novel's underscoring of individual agency and perceptual realism, where the enduring act of artistic creation—evident in Francesco's frescoes and George's observational acuity—reveals causal constants in human cognition that persist beyond social flux.^[53] These readings highlight how the text's reciprocity between narratives posits art as a stable medium for authentic self-expression, resisting postmodern dissolution into pure relativity by grounding disguise and duality in pragmatic, historically contingent choices rather than innate fluidity.^[54] Post-2014 scholarship, such as examinations of its architectural philosophy, further elucidates this by arguing the structure enacts a metaphysical reciprocity that affirms observer-dependent yet objectively verifiable realities, akin to fresco layering where underlying forms dictate surface multiplicity.^[50] Critiques have targeted the novel's potential anachronism in overlaying modern gender and identity paradigms onto Renaissance disguise practices, which historical evidence attributes more to economic survival and guild restrictions than proto-queer performativity, risking distortion of causal historical motivations.^[23] This projection, some contend, exemplifies a broader trend in contemporary literature where transient social constructs eclipse art's transhistorical essence, as the text's temporal linkages prioritize empathetic linkage over rigorous evidentiary linkage between epochs.^[55] Academic discourse post-2014 has debated this in metamodern terms, reconciling postmodern oscillation with a "return of the real" through the novel's insistence on perceptual immediacy, though skeptics from less ideologically aligned perspectives view such elite formal experiments as indulgent, detached from broader empirical verifiability in favor of insular aesthetic play.^[55] These tensions underscore ongoing scholarly friction between the novel's innovative reciprocity and demands for causal fidelity in interpreting cross-era human experience.^[56]

References

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How to Be Both | The Booker Prizes
Aug 28, 2014 · Borrowing from painting's fresco technique, How to Be Both is a novel all about art's versatility. There's a renaissance artist of the 1460s ...
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How to Be Both review – Ali Smith's dazzling dual-narrative novel
Sep 6, 2014 · The book has two interconnected stories. There is a teenage girl called George whose mother has just died and who is left struggling to make ...
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Baileys Prize: Ali Smith wins for How to be Both - BBC News
Jun 4, 2015 · How to be Both has already made its mark on the literary scene, having won the 2014 Costa Novel Award and the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize. It was also ...
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Ali Smith wins Baileys prize with How to Be Both - The Guardian
Jun 3, 2015 · Ali Smith wins Baileys prize with How to Be Both · The Women's Prize for Fiction · Ali Smith · Baileys women's prize for fiction 2015 · Fiction ...
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Ali Smith: 'He looked like the finest man who ever lived' - The Guardian
Aug 24, 2014 · For the writer Ali Smith, a holiday romance with a 500-year-old Italian was the inspiration for her Booker-nominated novel How To Be Both.
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Sep 6, 2014 · The books interview: The academic turned author talks to Alex Clark about modernism, imagination and why she could never be a lawyer.
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In stock Rating 3.7 (26,919) How to Be Both. Smith, Ali. Published by Penguin Books, Limited, 2014. ISBN 10: 0241146828 / ISBN 13: 9780241146828. Used / Softcover. Seller: Better World ...
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How To Be Both by Ali Smith (Hamish Hamilton) has sold nearly 1,300 copies. The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee (Chatto) has sold just under 1,000 copies ...
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[PDF] “Readers feel like they're at the heart of it, and that their responses to ...
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Mar 17, 2015 · The other half of the book is told from the viewpoint of the artist Francesco del Cossa and the writer has cleverly woven themes, ideas, ...
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Sep 16, 2014 · What's interesting about How To Be Both, though, is that in one of its two printed configurations it puts its more classically 'difficult' part ...Missing: stylistic differences
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How to Be Both by Ali Smith review – playful, tender, unforgettable
Sep 13, 2014 · You can read the two parts of How to Be Both in either order, which underlines George's mother's point about the layering and simultaneity ...Missing: stylistic sections
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How to be both is a fast-moving genre-bending conversation between forms, times, truths and fictions. There's a Renaissance artist of the 1460s. There's the ...
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Dec 31, 2014 · The two parts of “How to Be Both” have overlapping themes: the subversive power of art; what Martineau refers to as “sexual and gender ...Missing: plot | Show results with:plot
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How to Be Both Summary | SuperSummary
How to be Both is a 2014 novel by Scottish author Ali Smith. The narrative explores common threads of grief, identity, and memory from the perspectives of ...Missing: contemporary | Show results with:contemporary
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How to Be Both by Ali Smith - The Rumpus
Jan 13, 2015 · As a small boy, Francesco del Cossa, a real Italian Renaissance painter, sees a ripple in a puddle of horse urine. When the ring reaches the parameters of the ...
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Sala dei Mesi (Hall of the Months) at Palazzo Schifanoia - Smarthistory
Nov 4, 2022 · Of the surviving allegories of the months depicted in the Sala dei Mesi, those by Francesco del Cossa—March, April, and May—are among the best ...
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Francesco del Cossa was an early Renaissance painter of the Ferrarese school who, through his seven years' residence in Bologna, exercised a profound ...
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“The Place of Green Possibles”: Ali Smith's How to Be Both
Aug 4, 2016 · In 1473/4 Francesco del Cossa painted an exquisite Saint Lucy–scarlet and glinting-- now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.
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https://publicbooks.org/past-and-future-both-color-the-present/
[30]
A History of Fresco that Leads to Francesco del Cossa
Rating 4.9 (15) Dec 2, 2014 · Ali Smith's How to Be Both was inspired by a book she found about frescoes. Fresco, meaning "fresh" in Italian, is the technique of painting in water-based ...
[31]
(DOC) Artful Duality in Ali Smith's How to be Both - Academia.edu
Duality is an important theme in the novel “How to Be Both” by Ali Smith. Duality is the idea that something can both be, and not be. It is the idea that ...Missing: "literary | Show results with:"literary
[32]
[PDF] Artful Duality in Ali Smith's How to be Both - Literary Herald
How to be both shows us that the arrangement of a story, even when it's the same story, can change our understanding of it and define our emotional attachments.
[33]
Frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia at Ferrara
The leading masters were apparently Francesco del Cossa and Cosme Tura, with limited participation by Ercole de' Roberti and other anonymous artists. Preview ...
[34]
Past and Future Both Color the Present - Public Books
Apr 15, 2015 · How to Be Both, the sixth novel by the Scottish writer Ali Smith, is an astounding work of art, so exquisite in its composition that reading ...
[35]
All Book Marks reviews for How to Be Both by Ali Smith
In How to Be Both Smith puts her rebellious theory to its most intense test yet. Told in two long stories, the book is a tale about time and gender. Brilliant ...<|separator|>
[36]
Man Booker Challenge 2014: How to be both | LeedsBookClub
Oct 6, 2014 · How to be both, by Ali Smith How to be both is a novel all about ... Francesco was born a girl, but disguises herself as a boy and ...
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Book review of How to be Both, by Ali Smith - JeffKaplanArts
Sep 8, 2025 · In How to be Both, Ali Smith explores gender, a subject of intense inquiry in twentieth-century humanities.
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[PDF] Gender, Art and Language in Brigid Brophy's In Transit and Ali Smith's
Like them, she sets out to debunk artificial ideas about the nature of human identity, especially gender identity. ... Smith's How to Be Both is similarly full of ...
[39]
Gender Metamorphoses and Identity Frescoes in Girl Meets Boy and ...
In Girl Meets Boy (2007) and How to Be Both (2014) Ali Smith explores gender mutability and identity metamorphoses. Whether she rewrites Ovid's myth of ...
[40]
[PDF] Intertextuality and Sociopolitical Engagement in Contemporary ...
Francesco del Cossa's History. All traces of Francesco del Cossa were almost ... imagine that del Cossa was actually a woman who disguised herself as a man to ...<|separator|>
[41]
The Artful Duality of Ali Smith's How To Be Both - The Atlantic
Dec 3, 2014 · The intertwined stories of a 15th-century painter and a 21st-century teenager illuminate questions of art, identity, and immortality.
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Grief, Reading, and Narrative Time - The Polyphony
Nov 11, 2021 · In Smith's prize-winning 2014 novel How to Be Both, the paratextual ... This novel, then, functions as a performance of the temporal disruption of ...
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REVIEW: The art of grief: How to be Both (NOVEL) By Ali Smith - Dawn
Aug 16, 2015 · REVIEW: The art of grief: How to be Both (NOVEL) By Ali Smith ... temporal reality. With its subtle questioning of the unspoken rules ...
[44]
Ali Smith - The Booker Prizes
How to be Both won the Bailey's Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Autumn was ...
[45]
Ali Smith wins Goldsmiths prize for bifurcating marvel How to Be Both
Nov 12, 2014 · Smith's novel, which has won the £10,000 award for mould-breaking works, comes in two versions: one starting with a Renaissance fresco ...Missing: nominations | Show results with:nominations
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Book Review: How to Be Both by Ali Smith - The University Times
Nov 3, 2015 · Ali Smith's “How to be both” was awarded the 2014 Goldsmiths Prize, the title of 2014 Costa Novel of the Year, the 2014 Saltire Society ...Missing: nominations | Show results with:nominations
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Ali Smith wins the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction
We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2015 Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction is British novelist Ali Smith for How to Be Both.
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How to be both by Ali Smith - Triumph Of The Now
Oct 13, 2014 · Half of How to be both is good, and I'd have been more than happy to read it as a thin text. But the rest is one of the most engaging stories I' ...Missing: conservative | Show results with:conservative
[49]
Why great novels don't get noticed now - The Telegraph
Mar 14, 2015 · This year, Ali Smith's How to Be Both, a complicated idea offered in ... But Jones says sales figures are stacked against that idea ...
[50]
The Architecture of Narrative Reciprocity in Ali Smith's How to Be Both
Jan 26, 2022 · In this essay, I explore the architecture of and in How to Be Both to better understand the connections between the two protagonists, George and Francescho.Missing: techniques | Show results with:techniques
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Beholding:Visuality and Postcritical Reading in Ali Smith's ... - jstor
Ali Smith's novel How to be both (2014) dwells on the formal possibilities and epistemological problems associated with sight. This insistent visuality ...
[52]
How to Be Both: When Ali Smith Meets John Berger
In How to Be Both, Ali Smith follows John Berger's philosophical and political conceptions of art. Understanding the world through ways of seeing may be a ...
[53]
The Ways of Seeing and Making in Ali Smith's How to Be Both
Mar 8, 2022 · This essay focuses on the reprinted photograph as a paratextual element in order to examine the ways in which photography is deployed as an embedded commentary.Missing: timeline | Show results with:timeline
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[PDF] The Architecture of Narrative Reciprocity in Ali Smith's How to Be Both
Smith is one such architect, and her 2014 novel How to Be Both abounds with imagery of homes and walls and roofs. Architects and authors divide buildings into ...
[55]
The return of the 'real' in Ali Smith's Artful (2012) and How to Be Both ...
Aug 6, 2025 · This article will analyse two of Ali Smith's latest books, Artful (2012) and How to Be Both (2014), through the lenses of metamodernism and ...
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'Nothing is not connected. Nothing is not alive': Ali Smith as Art Critic
Feb 7, 2024 · These concerns have conceptual overlap with Smith's 2014 novel, How to Be Both, as Smith's queer rendering of an imagined lover taking Rodin ...Missing: sales | Show results with:sales<|separator|>