December 2024
Booker winner’s protest shows the new perils of arts sponsorship
Richard Flanagan said he’d only accept the Baillie Gifford Prize when the sponsor divested fossil fuels. It helps explain why “artwashing” corporates are moving to less controversial sponsorships.
October 2022
Booker’s Karunatilaka: ‘You don’t know who you’re going to offend’
Sri Lankan novelist Shehan Karunatilaka on growing up amid civil war, turning trauma into satire, and winning this year’s prize.
September 2022
Wolf Hall author Hilary Mantel dies at 70
The award-winning author of the Wolf Hall saga has died ‘suddenly yet peacefully’ surrounded by close family and friends, her publisher says.
November 2020
From impoverished in Glasgow to the toast of New York
Fashion designer Douglas Stuart turned his poverty-stricken childhood on a Scottish housing estate into a Booker Prize-winning novel.
December 2019
A certain resilience: The decade that books survived
The death of the printed word has been greatly ... well, you know the rest, because you read, don't you?
10 years on, long live the written word
Despite initial fears, digital and physical works have proven to be companionable siblings, encouraging vibrant and varied titles.
The top 19 books of 2019
Female writers and subjects take centre stage in the literature worth reading this year.
October 2019
The scandal of a Nobel laureate
Nobel literature prize winner Peter Handke has appalling political views. But that does not stop him from being a great writer, says Bret Stephens.
Two Nobel literature prizes awarded in one go
The literature prize was canceled last year after sex abuse allegations at the Swedish Academy, with the prizes going to the Polish novelist and Austrian writer.
September 2019
Margaret Atwood’s top secret new novel
Non-disclosure agreements and dummy copies were all part of the job for Booker Prize judges needing to read the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale.
August 2019
Revered novelist Toni Morrison dies at 88
The Nobel Prize-winning author was a constant, powerful voice on racism and and African-American identity; Barack Obama said she was a 'national treasure'.
