British novelist Gwendoline Riley is among eight writers set to receive $175,000 (£130,000) each in recognition of their life’s work. Australian playwright S Shakthidharan, known as Shakthi, is also among those selected... Read more »
‘May I say that I’m very glad to meet you,” Woody Brown taps on his word board. Brown is formal, funny and strikingly eloquent. He has a formidable ability to tell stories that reach into the... Read more »
Len Deighton, the British author whose subversive spy novels helped redefine the genre in the 1960s, has died aged 97. Best known for his debut, The Ipcress File, Deighton went on to... Read more »
António Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese novelist whose dark, polyphonic fiction confronted the traumas of dictatorship, war and Portuguese society, has died aged 83. Widely regarded as one of the most important Portuguese... Read more »
Every November, leading figures of French literature gather in the upstairs room of an old-fashioned Paris restaurant and decide on the best novel of the year. The ceremony is staid, traditional, down... Read more »
The Dutch writer Cees Nooteboom, whose novels, travel writing and translations made him a prominent literary figure in postwar Europe, has died aged 92. Publishing house De Bezige Bij said in a... Read more »
Each December, hundreds of thousands of diaspora Nigerians and Ghanaians travel to their ancestral home countries. For many, the draw is the end-of-year party season – better known as “Detty December”, a... Read more »
If there can be a downside to receiving a lifetime achievement award, it can surely only be the hint of closure it evokes. I put this as tactfully as I can to... Read more »
Madeleine Wickham, known for writing the bestselling novel Confessions of a Shopaholic under her pen name Sophie Kinsella, has died aged 55. Wickham, dubbed “the queen of romantic comedy” by novelist Jojo... Read more »