Ali Smith interviewed Richard Ovenden

Author, playwright, academic and journalist Ali Smith talks about her life and work in conversation with Bodley’s Librarian Richard Ovenden and receives the Bodley Medal for her outstanding contribution to literature.

Smith was once described by Sebastian Barry as ‘Scotland’s Nobel laureate-in-waiting’.  She has been shortlisted four times for the Booker Prize and has won the Goldsmiths Prize, Orwell Prize, Costa Best Novel Award and the Women’s Prize. Her novels and short story collections include The Accidental, Hotel World, How to be Both and the Seasonal Quartet. Her most recent novel was Companion Piece, a story that switches between post-Brexit lockdown Britain and the Middle Ages and examines questions about opening ourselves to other times, species, histories and possibilities.

‘Companion Piece makes you look at the world afresh. For me, it turned a cold and depressing day into a bright one’ New Statesman

The ceremony will feature Smith in conversation with Ovenden, Bodley’s Librarian and Head of Gardens, Libraries and Museums at the University of Oxford, who will also present the author with the Bodley Medal. The Bodley Medal is the Bodleian Libraries’ highest honour, awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the worlds of books and literature, libraries, media and communications, science and philanthropy.

First presented in 2002, previous recipients at the festival have included Peter Carey (2012), Hilary Mantel (2013), Nicholas Hytner (2014), Ian McEwan (2015), Mary Beard (2016), William Boyd (2017), Claire Tomalin (2018), Kazuo Ishiguro (2019), Zadie Smith (2022) and Colm Tóibín (2023).  Robert Caro (2022) was the first person to receive his award at the North American edition of the Bodley Medal presentation.

Presented by the Bodleian Libraries.