The Fifth Season: queer hosts and the Covid-19 pandemic in Ali Smith’s Summer and Companion Piece

This article explores representations of queer hospitality during the Covid-19 pandemic in two of Scottish writer Ali Smith’s novels, Summer (2020) and Companion Piece (2022). It examines the ways in which Smith’s Seasonal quartet sought to produce ‘state of the nation’ novels at a time of radically decentred and crisis ridden national identity in Britain through recentring marginal and minority voices and experiences as at the heart of concepts of belonging and hosting.