Literature
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Ismail Kadare, giant of Albanian literature, dies aged 88
Ismail Kadare, the Albanian writer who explored Balkan history and culture in poetry and fiction spanning more than 60 years,…
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Yorùbá Boy Running by Biyi Bándélé review – a historic hero
Like the protagonist of Yorùbá Boy Running, Biyi Bándélé had been running from a young age. Helon Habila The Guardian…
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Arundhati Roy wins PEN Pinter prize amid prosecution threat over Kashmir comments
The announcement comes two weeks after Indian officials granted permission to prosecute the writer over comments she made 14 years…
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The battle of the Verses
I never cared much for Salman Rushdie’s work. Nicholas Karides * I had tried to read The Satanic Verses not as the…
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VV Ganeshananthan and Naomi Klein win Women’s prizes for fiction and nonfiction
Doppelganger by Guardian US columnist Naomi Klein has become the inaugural winner of the Women’s prize for nonfiction, while Brotherless Night by…
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Books for a better world
Game-changing books that offer hope, as recommended by speakers at this year’s Hay festival, including Theresa May, Tom Holland, Helen…
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Palestinian prisoner Basim Khandaqji wins International Prize for Arabic Fiction
Τhe imprisoned Palestinian author Basim Khandaqji has been named the winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction for his 2023 novel A Mask, the…
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Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar review – an antihero in search of meaning
In Martyr!, the debut novel by Iranian-American poet Kaveh Akbar, a troubled young man is searching for a reason to…
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Philhellene author Arnold Zable recognised from the start the Greek passion for life with a deep sense of familiarity
“My work has been written, performed, in the spirit of philoxenia, of welcoming the stranger and seeking him out. Because…
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Orwellian nightmares: What I learned about today’s rage culture from rewriting 1984
A few years ago, I got what, for a writer of political fiction, is a dream job. Sandra Newman The…
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How Emily Wilson Made Homer Modern
Some three millennia ago, a blind bard whose name in ancient Greek means “hostage” is said to have composed two…
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In J.M. Coetzee’s latest story collection, questions of the soul become urgent as the body becomes frail
What may be surprising to some about this collection is that the stories have all appeared before in some form…
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Black Music Sunday: Celebrating Shakespeare’s birthday with jazz
“Somehow I suspect that if Shakespeare were alive today, he might be a jazz fan himself.” -Duke Ellington Denise Oliver Velez for Community…
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Follow the money: the story of slavery and Shakespeare’s First Folio
Two stories, usually seen as disconnected, unfold themselves during the second half of the 18th century. Emma Smith The Guardian…
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Friday essay: a lament for the lost art of letter-writing – a radical art form reflecting ‘the full catastrophe of life’
While I and my other housemates went on to the full array of box-ticking life experiences – children, careers, relationships,…
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Colette at 150: why the scandalous 20th-century writer remains a revered literary figure in France
Of course that surname is her father’s – “you can’t subvert patriarchy that easily”, added Carter – but by a…
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