Penguin prepares double edition of Ali Smith novel

11.08.14 | Benedicte Page - The Bookseller

Penguin imprint Hamish Hamilton is publishing Ali Smith's Man Booker longlisted How To Be Both (28th August) in a double edition; there will be two versions of the hardback, looking identical on the outside, and buyers will find themselves picking one or the other at random.

The novel is written in two parts of equal length - one in the voice of a contemporary teenager, recently bereaved, and one in that of a true-life early Renaissance artist, Francesco del Cossa - with links and slippages running between the two. In half of the print run, the contemporary section runs first; in half, it is placed second, so the reading experience becomes different.

Smith told The Bookseller she started the novel with the idea of this variable two-part structure and had to check with Hamish Hamilton publisher Simon Prosser that Penguin was prepared to do it before she went ahead. She said: "Simon really cuts me slack, Penguin is a big business, and God knows how he talked it through. He said, 'We'd just split the print run and divide the file.' Some of the international publishers have raised an eyebrow, sweetly - 'What if people think it's a mistake?'

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