The Accidental

Written by Ali Smith

Narrated by Stina Nielsen, Heather O'Neill and Simon Prebble

Barefoot, thirty-something Amber shows up at the door of a Norfolk cottage that the Smarts are renting for the summer, insinuating herself into their family. Dazzled by her seeming exoticism, the Smarts begin to examine the accidents of their lives under the searing lens of Amber's perceptions. When the mother Eve finally banishes her from the cottage, Amber disappears from their sight, but not-as they find when they return home to London-from their profoundly altered lives.

Fearlessly intelligent, disarmingly playful, The Accidental is a Joycean tour-de-force of literary improvisation that explores the nature of truth, the role of chance, and the transformative power of storytelling.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Highbridge Company
• Release date: Dec 27, 2005
• ISBN: 9781598871449

Ali Smith

Ali Smith was born in Inverness, and now lives in Cambridge. She has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize four times and twice for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, which she won in 2015 for How to Be Both. That novel also won the Goldsmiths Prize and the Costa Novel Award. In 2022, she was awarded the Austrian State Prize for European Literature.