"There are two ways to read this novel, but in the end, you'll only read one of them," Ali Smith said in an interview with The Guardian, a sentence that can be applied to all her novels. A strong candidate for the Nobel Prize in recent years, Ali Smith is one of the most important English-speaking voices on the world literary scene today. In a recent poll conducted by The Times, Smith topped the list as the best living British writer, followed by Hilary Mantel and Zadie Smith. Ali Smith has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize four times: for "Chance" in 2005, "How to Be Both" in 2014, and "Autumn" in 2016. She has not won, and many writers consider this a great injustice, and she deserved to win long ago. The fourth novel to make the Man Booker shortlist is the one we are discussing now: "The World Hotel," published in 2001 by Hamish Hamilton. The novel was also a finalist for the Women's Prize for Literature (formerly the Orange Prize). It won the British Encore Award for Second Novel in 2002. "The World Hotel," the title conceals the journey through grief and loss, and our passage through time, or its passage through us as guests within it. The author says in an interview: "I love language, and I also love butterflies and the shape of clouds." All of this is evident in this novel, in which Smith plays with linguistic games, manipulating words and punctuation, which enriches the depth of the language and the turmoil of its characters. Thus, the pleasure of literature is intertwined with pain and sorrow.