In Ali Smith's 'Gliff,' two children flee capture in an authoritarian near-future
NPR's Book of the Day
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4.2 β’ 672 Ratings
ποΈ 11 February 2025
β±οΈ 8 minutes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Empire's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh. Ollie Smith's new book, Gliff, |
| 0:06.7 | is a dystopian-y-a novel set in an authoritarian regime. She spends the first half of this interview |
| 0:13.2 | with NPR Scott Simon talking about that, how easy it is to actually be seduced by authoritarianism. |
| 0:25.3 | But then in the second half, they start talking about Smith's previous career as an advertising copywriter. |
| 0:26.2 | And she says something about how slogans work because they connect to something tribal inside |
| 0:32.1 | all of us, which makes me wonder if she learned a thing or two about authoritarianism from her time in |
| 0:38.2 | advertising. |
| 0:39.2 | That's ahead. |
| 0:40.7 | In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. |
| 0:45.5 | Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and |
| 0:51.5 | methods. |
| 0:52.1 | NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, |
| 0:55.8 | helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. |
| 0:59.7 | Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. |
| 1:05.3 | Brian, their sister Rose, are unverifiable. |
| 1:09.9 | Red Line is painted around their house after their mother leaves on a family |
| 1:13.3 | emergency, but they find a place in which to squat where the horses that graze in an adjacent |
| 1:20.7 | field lift their eyes and hearts to someplace else. Gliff is the name they give a horse and is the |
| 1:27.0 | title of a new novel from |
| 1:28.3 | Ali Smith, the novelist and playwright. |
| 1:31.3 | Won the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction for her novel summer, and she is sometimes |
| 1:35.9 | called Scotland's Nobel laureate in Waiting. |
... |
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