Ali Smith (b. 1962) is one of the most fashionable English writers - known in her homeland not only as a novelist, but also as a talented photographer and journalist. Her first collection of short stories, Free Love (1995), won the award for best book of the year and the Scottish Arts Council award. This was followed by the novel How (Like, 1997) and the collection Other Stories and Other Stories (1999). The novel Hotel World (2001) was nominated for the 2001 Booker Prize, and the latest novel, Accidental (2005), which received one of the most prestigious English literary awards, the Whitbread prize, was nominated for the " Booker" 2005. How to understand the uniquely inventive labyrinth of coincidences, luck, missed and acquired connections? What happens when you bump into Death in the busy crowd of a train station? (You know who it is because your cell phone goes silent when Death smiles.) What if your lover fell in love with a tree? Should I be jealous of her? From the woman pursued by a full-dress trumpet band to the artist who built a seven-foot boat out of second-hand copies of The Great Gatsby, the characters in Smith's novels are astonishing, charming, sexy and as intricately complex as life itself.