For decades, they lay in a secret room in her attic gathering dust. Now, newly discovered artworks by the Booker prize-winning author Iris Murdoch – including the only self-portrait she is known to have painted, four surrealist landscape paintings and three sketches of female nudes – will go on display for the first time on Friday.

The artworks were created at the start of the second world war when Murdoch was a student at Oxford. They expose her early interest in surrealism and fascination with the naked female form.

Until now, Murdoch was only known to have created three paintings in her lifetime.

In total, more than 80 new artworks by the novelist were discovered last year at Murdoch’s former home in north Oxford by Dr Miles Leeson, director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre at the University of Chichester.

He was invited by the executors of Murdoch’s estate to explore 30 Charlbury Road after the death of Audi Bayley, the second wife of Murdoch’s late husband, John Bayley, who lived there until 2024.

Murdoch, who died in 1999 and was known to be a hoarder, had stashed the paintings and sketches in a secret room in her attic. The door was hidden behind a large bookcase. “It was inaccessible,” Leeson said. “It was like an inner sanctum.”

He suspects no one had been inside the room for decades and that only Murdoch and her husband were aware of its existence.

“I don’t think Audi knew about it,” he said. “I don’t think anybody knew about it … there were a lot of personal effects and items in there. Really private stuff.”

Murdoch had realised she was bisexual at 15 and the drawings reveal her fascination with the naked female form, shortly before she embarked on her first known physical relationship with a woman. “There is a sexual frisson in the drawings of female nudes,” Leeson said. “Also the yearning that one feels in these life drawings, these nudes, comes through in her early poetry that is dedicated to women that she desired.”

In 2016, after Audi Bayley invited him round for tea, Leeson became the first person in at least a decade to enter the main, more exposed part of the attic. There, he discovered 600 of Murdoch’s unpublished poems, including many lesbian love poems, buried in a chest.

Last year, in the hidden room, as well as the signed and dated paintings and nude drawings, Leeson found 20 surrealist watercolours, two pencil and watercolour drawings of Murdoch’s parents and more than 50 pencil and pen sketches in two sketchbooks.

“These artworks show her engaging with her world in a new light, displaying a new aspect of Murdoch that was hitherto hidden,” Leeson said. “Artworks and artists are everywhere in her fictional work, and she designs ‘scenes’ in her philosophy as well. Murdoch is a visual artist in all the mediums she was working in, and these newly discovered paintings lend more evidence to this.”

Twenty-five of the newly discovered works, including the self-portrait and the surrealist landscape paintings, will be on display for the first time at the University of Chichester Library until 10 December, as part of an exhibition, Iris Murdoch Amongst the Artists – the first ever devoted to Murdoch as an artist.

It will feature all the major artworks Murdoch is known to have painted during her life, alongside works by British artists who designed her book covers, such as Reynolds Stone and Tom Phillips.

The self-portrait is dated 7 January 1941, revealing how Murdoch saw herself at the age of 21. “It’s a portrait of somebody who’s clearly a deep and expressive thinker,” Leeson said.

The newly discovered surrealist works date from 1939 to 1941, a formative and intensely intellectual period of Murdoch’s life, Leeson said. “These paintings were produced during a really heady time at Oxford, when she was a member of the Communist party, involved in student politics and the student newspaper … and of course, it’s the early years of the second world war, which is reflected in the surrealist landscapes.”

The paintings, which appear to be influenced by the art of Salvador Dalí and Pablo Picasso, communicated a feeling of despair, anxiety and destruction, he added. “There’s a sense of the breakdown of society, of what’s keeping the centre together. I think she’s trying to say something deeply profound and philosophical about the state of Britain at the time, about the destruction of European culture … She’s capturing the mood of the nation on these canvases.”

He believes she was drawn to the surrealist movement and turned to painting as an experiment. “She’s writing poetry, she’s beginning to write fiction and she’s trying out different art forms and finding out who she is as an artist … it’s all part of one great artistic mind trying to work out where her talents lie.”

There were strong links between these formative works and her later literary masterpieces, Leeson said. “The Black Prince is a work of late modernism in which reality becomes skewed, and in her Booker prize-winning novel The Sea, The Sea, the main character, Charles Arrowby, tries to escape reality and lives within his own mind, and is completely self-absorbed,” he said.

“I think some of Murdoch’s surrealist paintings are asking us to look at reality in a different way and to think about the essentials of the human condition. They add another layer of complexity and interest to the story of Iris Murdoch and how we now consider her in the 21st century.”

Madeleine Thien and Robbie Arnott are among the writers shortlisted for this year’s £10,000 Climate fiction prize.

Now in its second year, the prize celebrates novels that engage with the climate crisis through imaginative storytelling. This year’s shortlist spans a wide range of styles, from speculative fiction to reimagined myth.

Thien’s The Book of Records follows a girl who escapes with her father from flooding in a near-future China, and arrives at a large migrant compound called the Sea. The book traces the human costs of the climate crisis and social injustice, weaving personal and historical journeys across generations in what Guardian reviewer Xan Brooks called a “rich and beautiful novel”.

Robbie Arnott was shortlisted for Dusk, about twins who join the hunt for a puma in the Tasmanian wilderness, described in a Guardian review by James Bradley as a “starkly beautiful and deeply felt” novel.

Also in contention for the award is The Tiger’s Share, the second novel by Indian author Keshava Guha, a state-of-the-nation tale of sibling rivalry set in heavily polluted Delhi.

Susanna Kwan was shortlisted for Awake in the Floating City. This debut is about an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for, two of the last remaining people in a flooded San Francisco of the future.

Other novels on the list address the intersection of climate change with competing global crises. Endling, by Maria Reva, considers environmental collapse alongside Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The novel was praised in the Guardian as “dexterous and formally inventive”, and was also longlisted for the Booker prize.

Elsewhere, Helen Phillips’s sixth book, Hum, is set in a near future where robots called “hums” have taken over many jobs, the air is poisonous and the tap water is contaminated. It was described by Daisy Hildyard in the Guardian as “mesmerising and scary”.

The judging panel for this year’s prize features Arifa Akbar, chief theatre critic at the Guardian, novelists Kit de Waal and Jessie Greengrass, climate scientist Friederike Otto, and broadcaster Simon Savidge.

Titles longlisted for the prize that did not make the shortlist were Every Version of You by Grace Chan, Helm by Sarah Hall, Albion by Anna Hope, The Price of Everything by Jon McGoran, Juice by Tim Winton, and Sunbirth by An Yu.

The award is funded by Climate Spring, which also finances and consults on climate-related film and TV projects.

The shortlisted novels range “from intimate family stories to sweeping political and historical narratives”, said Lucy Stone, founder and executive director of Climate Spring. “These novels fluidly move across genres and settings while grappling with some of the defining themes of our time – power, accountability, community and resilience in a changing world.”

The prize was launched in June 2024 at Hay literary festival, and the inaugural winner was Abi Daré’s And So I Roar.

In order to be eligible for this year’s prize, books must have been published in the UK between 1 September 2024 and 31 August 2025. The winner will be announced on 27 May.

The Edinburgh book festival is to champion the positive power of hope later this summer with events involving Hanif Kureishi, the Palestinian poet Najwan Darwish and an exiled Brazilian tribal leader.

The core theme for this year’s festival will be the “expansive” concept of repair, and offering solutions and optimism at a time of crisis and conflict, said Jenny Niven, the event’s director.

“I think it’s an act of hope,” Niven said. “Repair is a positive, optimistic approach, [and] looking at journalism, looking at politics, there are a lot of things that are broken – politically, mental health and wellbeing, societally.

“And rather than leaving people sort of worried, we’re hoping that we can present new writers and thinkers who offer solutions and new ideas and great analysis that moves the conversation forward.”

That strand will begin with an opening gala featuring new commissions from Darwish, Juma Xipaia, a Brazilian Indiginous leader forced into exile after she challenged government corruption, and others such as Jenni Fagan and Amitav Ghosh. Kureishi, who had a catastrophic fall that left him paralysed, will appear online with a “very personal perspective on repair”.

Niven said she was also striving to broaden the festival’s appeal, both to increase its audience but also to much more accurately reflect what people read.

That includes putting on the former Scotland footballer turned pundit Ally McCoist with his new autobiography Dear Scotland, and the Gavin and Stacey writer and co-star Ruth Jones, who will take part in the festival’s “Front List” strand of celebrity writers at the 1,000-seat capacity McEwan Hall.

Nicola Sturgeon, the former first minister, will discuss her new memoir Frankly with Kirsty Wark, originally billed as the book’s launch event, though Sturgeon has since added in several talks earlier in the week, beginning with an event in Manchester.

Among the 700 events in this year’s edition of the festival, which before the Covid crisis laid claim to be the world’s largest literature festival, will be a greatly expanded series of cookery shows, after the few it staged last year “went gangbusters”, Niven said.

There will be seven cookery demonstrations at a cookery school featuring chefs such as Sabrina Ghayour offering Persian cuisine, lunch with Rosie Kellett and Spanish cookery with José Pizarro, where the audience will eat the meals they make.

Tickets will be sought after: there will be 44 tickets for each, with several three-hour-long cookery events costing up to £100 a head – among the most expensive tickets of all the festivals this year.

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With the book festival now in a new and unfamiliar home on the south side of Edinburgh, in an extensively remodelled Victorian hospital now part of Edinburgh University, Niven is attempting to refashion its approach.

Music, book-binding workshops and a dedicated young adult series have become mainstream events, as have more theatrical productions and specific subject themes to “cut through all the festival noise”.

Chief among those will be a recreation of the Scotch sitting room devised by the anarchic Scottish poet and writer Ivor Cutler featuring Hamish Hawk, who will present stories from his childhood and reworkings of Cutler’s work, accompanied by Cutler’s original harmonium.

On the festival’s final day the Hollywood stars Viggo Mortensen and Vanessa Redgrave will feature among a cast of celebrity speakers on stage reading from The People Speak, an anthology of famous speeches and polemics from around the world, drawn from a collection collated by the historians Anthony Arnove and Howard Zinn.

For many Harry Potter fans, no actors could ever live up to the original cast of the cherished film franchise. For others, a new TV adaptation is an opportunity for greater detail and faithfulness to JK Rowling’s magical seven-book series.

Much of the guessing and speculation can be put to rest now, as HBO has made its first official casting announcement for some of the wizarding world’s most notable characters in its forthcoming Harry Potter series.

The company announced on Monday that John Lithgow would play Albus Dumbledore, Paapa Essiedu would be Severus Snape, Janet McTeer would be Minerva McGonagall, and Nick Frost would appear as Rubeus Hagrid. All four actors will be series regulars.

Meanwhile, Luke Thallon was announced to play Quirinus Quirrell and Paul Whitehouse to play Argus Filch, both in guest and recurring roles.

The series, designed to run for more than a decade, comes from the writer and showrunner Francesca Gardiner and director and executive producer Mark Mylod of Succession.

“We are happy to announce the casting of John Lithgow, Janet McTeer, Paapa Essiedu, Nick Frost, Luke Thallon and Paul Whitehouse to play Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, Hagrid, Quirrell and Filch,” the pair said. “We’re delighted to have such extraordinary talent onboard, and we can’t wait to see them bring these beloved characters to new life.”

The US actor Lithgow, who most recently starred in the Bafta- and Oscar-winning papal election thriller Conclave, will take over the role played by Richard Harris and Michael Gambon in the films. Dumbledore, the headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, is a caring and powerful wizard who mentors Harry in his fight against the dark lord Voldemort.

It had previously been reported that Mark Rylance was in the running for the part. But Lithgow – a veteran of stage and screen, and winner of six Emmy awards (including for his role as Winston Churchill in The Crown), two Golden Globes, an Olivier and a Tony – announced his own casting in February.

Essiedu received an Emmy nomination for his role in the critically acclaimed series I May Destroy You and also starred in series such as The Lazarus Project and Gangs of London. He will transform into the Hogwarts potions professor Snape, who was played by Alan Rickman in the films. Harry Potter is constantly at odds with Snape, who is hostile to him but is later revealed to have been bullied by Harry’s father, James, while harbouring an unrequited love for his mother, Lily.

McTeer, a past winner of numerous accolades including a Tony, an Olivier and a Golden Globe, will be McGonagall, the head of Gryffindor house – a role played by Maggie Smith in the films. McTeer has appeared in films including Tumbleweeds, Wuthering Heights and The Menu.

Meanwhile Frost, best known for his roles in the comedy films Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, will take over from Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid, the Hogwarts groundskeeper and half-giant who becomes a faithful friend and ally to Harry and his friends.

The new casting announcement will undoubtedly draw much reaction from Potter fans. There had already been division after rumours first emerged that Essiedu was being considered to play Snape, who is described in the books as having “greasy, shoulder-length black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin”. Others were concerned that a US star had been cast to play Dumbledore.

The casting for the trio of main characters – Harry, Hermione and Ron – is yet to be announced, though it is likely they will be played by newcomers after Warner Bros launched an open casting call for children aged between nine and 11 last autumn. There have also been rumours that Cillian Murphy is being considered to play Voldemort.

According to HBO, the series will be a “faithful adaptation” of the books by Rowling, who serves as an executive producer. With a new cast, the show will delve into more detail than the eight feature films spawned by the epic franchise, released between 2001 and 2011.

The series will be “full of the fantastic detail, much-loved characters and dramatic locations that Harry Potter fans have loved for over 25 years”, Max, the newly branded streaming service for HBO, promised in a statement upon the series announcement in April 2023.

“Each season will be authentic to the original books and bring Harry Potter and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world, while the original, classic and beloved films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch globally.”

Rowling has ownership over key aspects of the Harry Potter intellectual property, including the characters. But her involvement in the show has been divisive because of her opinions about trans people, which have drawn criticism from some of the franchise’s original stars. The writer’s expansive Harry Potter world – including the books, films, video games and theatre – is worth an estimated £20bn ($26bn).

At London’s Kings Cross station, site of the fictional platform 9 and ¾, fans were ambivalent about the cast.

“As someone who grew up with the books, I’m looking forward to seeing what they’ve created,” said 25-year-old Grace Whitehill from London. “But at the same time, I don’t want my experience to be ruined if they create something that’s too far from what JK Rowling originally wrote.”

Banker Jaston Fernandes, 25, agreed. “I think my only concern is I don’t want it to tarnish the legacy of what it’s been,” he said. “I’ve not seen the Cursed Child because I think it’s perfect as it is. I don’t want to touch it.”

Fans were also quick to address the backlash faced by the casting of Essiedu as Snape. “[Essiedu] is not the problem – he’s a good actor in everything he does,” said Aurelia Jumeaucourt, a 30-year-old consultant from Paris. “The problem is people. As long as he’s a good actor, I don’t care what he looks like.”

“Sometimes the fandom can be quite toxic,” said Whitehill, who has left many of the social media groups she was once part of. “It’s really lovely when you meet the right people, but sometimes it can get very cultish.”

The series is expected to debut on Max and the HBO and Warner Bros Discovery streaming service in 2026, almost 30 years after the first book in Rowling’s bestselling series was published in 1997, and 15 years after the final film landed on screens.

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Elizabeth Day, Afua Hirsch and Mick Herron are among those named as Royal Society of Literature (RSL) fellows for 2024.

The new cohort of 29 writers, announced at a ceremony held at the Garden Museum, London, also includes Jacqueline Crooks, Guy Gunaratne and Victoria Hislop.

The new fellows signed their name in the RSL roll book using the pens of historically prominent writers including Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Andrea Levy and Jean Rhys.

The society’s president, Bernardine Evaristo, used her address to talk about the importance of reading. “This year I’m inspired to talk about readers for whom most authors, one assumes, are writing – and the importance of nurturing and engaging with them in the literature ecosystem,” she said. “Without readers, writing would be an unpaid hobby. They are our supporters, interpreters, the customers without whom there would, in fact, be no publishing industry.”

Thirteen new honorary fellows – individuals who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of literature in the UK, or who have “rendered special service” to the RSL – were also announced. These include Sarah Ardizzone, a translator; Sanchita Basu De Sarkar, owner of the Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill; and SuAndi, a writer, poet and freelance cultural director of National Black Arts Alliance. SuAndi also won the Benson medal, which recognises services to literature across a whole career.

The announcement of the new cohort comes months after the RSL referred itself to the Charity Commission after facing allegations of censorship, as well as criticism over changes to the way fellows are elected and its response to the stabbing of Salman Rushdie in 2022. On Wednesday, the Times reported that more than 20 fellows planned to boycott this year’s ceremony.

In February, Maggie Fergusson, the former editor of the RSL’s annual magazine, Review, told the Times that publication was postponed over an article that was critical of Israel. The RSL said that it published the Review “in full” in late March.

The RSL was also criticised for its response to Rushdie’s stabbing. Novelist Ian McEwan told the Guardian: “The failure of the RSL leadership to give unequivocal support to Salman Rushdie following the brutal attempt on his life was to inhabit a remote moral universe that most of us do not share.” In February, the charity tweeted: “The RSL supports you @SalmanRushdie following the horrific attack on your life in 2022 – you had our support then as you do now.”

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The society has also been criticised for expanding its fellowship too quickly. In 2018, the RSL appointed 40 new fellows under the age of 40, and in 2022 and 2023, it elected 60 fellows through RSL Open, an initative aimed at recognising writers from backgrounds underrepresented in UK literary culture. This year, it plans to launch a new election process, which will allow members of the public to recommend writers for fellowship. Recommendations will be whittled down by election panels and voted on by the panel, the council, the vice-presidents, the president and the presidents emeriti.