Innovative, sophisticated, and intelligent, the stories in The First Person and Other Stories are packed full of ideas, jokes, nuance, and compassion. In one, a middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. In another, an innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting, and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, a third presents its narrator, "Ali," as she drinks tea, phones a friend, and muses on the relationship between the short story and—a nymph.

"Terrific...hurrah for Ali Smith... The best short-story writers make it look as easy as making a cup of tea. Ali Smith is one of these... A bold and brilliant collection of stories by a writer unafraid to give it to us as it is."
—The Times

"What is a short story? In the hands of Smith, it feels like a moment of intimacy between author and reader, sustained by the simplicity of her language and strong authorial voice and wound up before the spell has a chance to fade... The First Person sees Smith juggling her ideas with ambition and playfulness and a lightness of touch."
—Scotsman

"Ali Smith is a writer seething with stories compelled to experiment with how she puts them on the plate... Smith's strength is that her tricksiness feels closer to life than art."
—Daily Telegraph

"Quintessential... Darting like sprites or pop-up jokes... Delicious stuff"
—Scotsman

"Gleefully turns the short story inside-out, breaks in into its atoms and rebuilds, stretches and skewers it into whole new topologies... She is on top form... Smith is such a dazzling author that finishing one of her books is always bittersweet"
—Scotland on Sunday

"Wonderful... Pared down to the point of perfection... Smith has found a format in which her sly wit and dextrous storytelling sing. It might be more helpful to say: read them."
—Independent

"Profoundly optimistic. Frightening yet funny... the sheer exuberance and playfulness of her language endows dark matters with a lightness of touch. Ali Smith simultaneously disguises her artistry and brilliantly exposes the processes of artistry itself."
—Anita Sethi, New Statesman

"Effortless. Her stories blend the everyday with the fantastical and are snapshots of the lives of people you genuinely believe in...they will tickle your brain and your funny bone as much as your heart: don't overlook them."
—Alex Heminsley, London Paper

"The First Person is an unsettling read but it's a deeply pleasurable one too. Smith is a brilliant storyteller who is able to blend fine details with provocative ambiguity."
—Time Out

"The unstrained fabric of the narrative shows Ali Smith's craft at its best. She takes a gimmick, a meta-fictional posture, and animates it with warmth and humanity."
—Financial Times

"Smith's is a profoundly optimistic vision. These stories are frightening yet funny, and the sheer exuberance and playfulness of her language endows dark matters with a lightness of touch."
—New Statesman

"Ali Smith's light touch illuminates dramatic emotional moments in an unreliable world."
—Psychologies

"These stories, rich with metaphorical possibilities and tantalising interpretations, continue to reverberate long after you have read them."
—Sunday Telegraph

"A brilliant and thought-provoking collection, The First Person is the essence of "pleasure or whatever""
—Independent on Sunday

"A new book from Ali Smith is always an event, but a new short story collection is a treat akin to a luxury box of chocolates... This slim volume will cement Smith's reputation as one of our finest writers of short fiction for thoughtful folk. Her playful, lyrical stories lift the everyday into the sublime."
—Diva

"The effect with each (story) is of an artfully constructed flight of fancy, tethered to reality with just enough string so that it resonates with meaningful wit, emotion and intelligence. Funny and insightful, each (story) is a real pleasure to read."
—Easy Living

"Teasing, provoking, quickwitted, her stories are fearless. Smith has said of the best short stories that "They will come in and take the shirts off our backs." Hers do... These are indeed nimble tales, lightly turning cartwheels at the command of an assured writer. She plays with the medium, giving cheeky glances of how story-writing works, lifting the lid on her own art... Best of all, Ali Smith is funny. Black humour, farce, irony, she does them all equally well. These stories, rich with metaphorical possibilities, and tantalising interpretations, continue to reverberate long after you have read them."
—Seven (Telegraph)

"A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form."
—Independent

"Shimmering short stories by the mistress of the genre."
—Diva

"Reality flirts with fiction. The writer dances across the pages, laughing, changing and challenging. Meet a modern genuius."
—Saga

"Smith's writing is highly supple, and there is something going on in every sentence...her stories are propelled by an immediacy that is seductively inclusive."
—Literary Review

"Magical realism and cultural references wrapped up in manipulated forms and flexible points of view characterise the eleven stories... Smith blends effortlessly language and form like a gifted vintner romping around in sun and soil with her grapes and barrels and tannin... [a] sly and nimble exploration of the art and the artifice of fiction."
—Scottish Review of Books