54 h. ago Our favourite debut writers out this month: Veronika Dapunt, Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin, Claire Gleeson

Sara Lawrence reviews the best debuts books out now.

Politics

69 h. ago Elizabeth Strout, Miranda July and four debut writers make the Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist

From novels described as a 'Muslim Fleabag' to those endorsed by Gillian Anderson, the Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist has collated the most exciting and original novels of the year

Politics

2 d. ago The Rest of Our Lives by Ben Markovits review – a quietly brilliant midlife roadtrip

Once your kids are at university, what’s next for you? This compelling depiction of life at a crossroads is a male counterpart to Miranda July’s All FoursBen Markovits’s quietly excellent new novel begins with the most mundane of middle-class crises. The book’s narrator, 55-year-old law professor Tom Layward, is taking his youngest child to university. For Tom and his wife Amy, the major tasks of parenting are about to vanish in the rear view mirror. The question is: what’s next?It’s a moment of change and re-evaluation for any couple. But within Tom and Amy’s marriage an unexploded bomb is ticking. Tom tells us in the first paragraph that, 12 years earlier, Amy had an affair. He managed his heartbreak by making a deal with himself that he would leave when his youngest went to college. Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago The Women’s Prize for Fiction 2025 shortlist is here – these are my must

From coming-of-age stories to sexual awakenings, these six titles have been recognised as future classics

Politics

3 d. ago Elizabeth Strout and Miranda July are among finalists for the Women's Prize for Fiction

American authors Elizabeth Strout and Miranda July are among finalists for the Women’s Prize for Fiction

Politics

3 d. ago Miranda July and Elizabeth Strout shortlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction

American authors of All Fours and Tell Me Everything are competing for the 30th award alongside four other novels highlighting ‘the importance of human connection’American writers Miranda July and Elizabeth Strout have been shortlisted for the 30th Women’s prize for fiction alongside four debut authors.The six titles in contention for the £30,000 prize all draw on “the importance of human connection” in different ways, said writer and judging chair Kit de Waal. “What is surprising and refreshing is to see so much humour, nuance and lightness employed by these novelists to shed light on challenging concepts.” Continue reading...

Politics

3 d. ago Women’s Prize for Fiction unveils 2025 shortlist featuring four debut novelists tackling identity, history and self

The category is dominated by new voices, joined by previous nominees Miranda July and Elizabeth Stout

Culture

5 d. ago Halle Berry says Oscars not designed for black female actors ‘so we have to stop coveting them’

The only black female actor to have won the leading actress award was speaking on documentary Number One on the Call Sheet along with Taraji P Henson and Whoopi GoldbergHalle Berry has said she now believes her historic Oscars in 2002, for Monster’s Ball, was an anomaly, and that fellow black female actors should therefore stop “coveting” Academy Awards.Berry, now 58, is the only black woman to have won the leading actress Oscar in the awards’ nearly 100 year history. Cynthia Erivo’s nomination for Wicked earlier this year marks the first time a woman of colour has been nominated for the leading actress Oscar more than once (she was previously nominated for Harriet). Only 15 black women have ever been in contention for the prize. Continue reading...

Politics

9 d. ago ‘I was surprised how common it is’: the director of Sebastian on his controversial film about an author who enters sex work

In Sebastian, a writer sells his body to provide material for his debut novel, then doesn’t give the night job up. Mikko Mäkelä explains what inspired his film – and remembers his cinematic sexual awakeningGrowing up in a small Finnish town close to the Russian border, Mikko Mäkelä knew he was gay from the age of 11. “I think I was happy until then,” says the shy 36-year-old, whose slippery second film Sebastian is about to be released. Isolated he may have been, but at least the young Mäkelä had movies. Alone in his room, he watched queer gems such as Mysterious Skin, Presque Rien and Beautiful Thing, keeping the volume low in case his parents heard. Then a trip to the cinema to see Brokeback Mountain changed everything.“When I got home, they asked me, ‘Did you like that film?’ They had read about it and wanted to make sure I wasn’t like the characters. That was the night I ended up coming out to them.” He didn’t stay in Finland much longer, movingNottingham to attend university. “...

Culture

1 week ago The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami review – what if AI could read our minds?

Longlisted for the Women’s prize, this powerful dystopian novel imagines people jailed for their potential to commit crimesArriving home at Los Angeles international airport, Sara Hussein is asked by immigration and customs officers to step aside, then taken to an interview room. The fundamentals of this scene are familiar – you’ve probably watched something like it in a film, or dreamed about it happening to you; perhaps it already has. But Sara lives in a new world, several decades in the future, and she is being arrested because Scout, the state’s AI security system, has flagged something irregular inside her mind.Sara seems unexceptional: she’s a museum archivist, married and mother to young twins. She once had an argument with her husband Elias after he impulsively part-exchanged the family Toyota for a Volvo. Sara sees herself as a person who “couldn’t possibly be considered a member of the lawbreaking classes”, until the moment at the airport when an officer informs her that ...

Politics

1 week ago Musician Neneh Cherry and medic Rachel Clarke are among finalists for a major nonfiction prize

A moving memoir by Swedish singer Neneh Cherry and the gripping story of a heart transplant by British doctor Rachel Clarke are among finalists for the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction

Politics

1 week ago Yuan Yang, Neneh Cherry and Rachel Clarke shortlisted for Women’s prize for nonfiction

Chloe Dalton, Helen Scales and Clare Mulley are also in the running for the £30,000 award, with the winner due to be announced on 12 JuneThe Buffalo Stance singer Neneh Cherry, Labour MP Yuan Yang and the doctor Rachel Clarke have been shortlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for nonfiction.Foreign policy expert Chloe Dalton, marine biologist Helen Scales and biographer Clare Mulley also remain in contention for the £30,000 prize. Continue reading...

Politics

1 week ago On the Clock by Claire Baglin review – a fast food novel for a refined palette

Tensions sizzle alongside burgers in the hazy timelines and brisk prose of the French writer’s disorienting debutIn recent novels set in restaurants, the breakneck speed of the action hides darker elements at work. Stéphane Larue’s The Dishwasher follows a restaurant worker whose life threatens to unravel amid his gambling addiction; in Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back, the world of waitressing is a front for Texas’s grimy underbelly. Beneath the surface frenzy of French writer Claire Baglin’s debut novel, On the Clock (translated by Jordan Stump), there is a similar stream of existential angst, its protagonist “mired in the heart of pointlessness”.Baglin’s focus is intergenerational exploitation in the (French) workplace. She gives an impressionistic portrait of a young woman employed at a burger joint in brisk but unsparing prose, alternating between her unnamed narrator’s customer-facing drudgery – unfriendly co-workers, pestering managers, habitual injuries – and her childhood memo...

Society

1 week ago As Thomas Tuchel takes charge of England, Miguel Delaney answers your questions on their World Cup chances

Our chief football writer Miguel Delaney is here to dissect Thomas Tuchel’s England debut and what it means ahead of the next World Cup qualifier against Latvia

Politics

1 week ago This book brings the grim horrors of London’s rental market to life

As Irish writer and journalist Róisín Lanigan publishes her debut novel about a young couple who move into a property too good to be true, Katie Rosseinsky looks into the recent rise of fiction unravelling the nightmarish realities of London’s housing market

Events

2 w. ago As Thomas Tuchel takes charge, Miguel Delaney answers your questions on England’s World Cup chances

Our chief football writer Miguel Delaney is here to dissect Thomas Tuchel’s England debut and what it means ahead of the next World Cup qualifier against Latvia

Politics

2 w. ago World Sevens Football: who will be taking part and how will it work?

Organisers of the new $1m seven-a-side series say new format will have ‘lots of freedom of expression’ Following the announcement of a new, lucrative women’s seven-a-side series – called World Sevens Football and offering the winning team a cash prize that rivals that of the Women’s Champions League – what else do we know about this new event? Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Brief History of a Family review – mysterious interloper at centre of exquisitely constructed drama

Lin Jianjie’s remarkable debut feature keeps you guessing to the final scene – a thrilling film directed and performed immaculatelyThis knockout debut feature from Chinese writer-director Lin Jianjie is like some kind of cinematic kinetic mobile, such as the ones artist Alexander Calder designed in the last century; it’s so exquisitely balanced that it’s able to keep reconfiguring itself with the merest breeze into a whole new arrangement of shapes that’s just as pleasing and abstract as the last. Precision and random chance, freestyle inspiration and formal craft are all in constant play here. That perfectly complements the story itself, a parable about a tricky space – the family unit – where talent, ambition and the lottery of genetics and luck all dance around one another, held in place by gravity and desire. It really is that good, and well-worth seeing in a cinema, not just on a small screen at home, so as to appreciate Zhang Jiahao’s sculptural cinematography and the sparse p...

Society

3 w. ago Broadchurch creator Chris Chibnall’s debut novel to be turned into ITV series

The 54-year old film writer said the decision was a “no-brainer” to adapt his debut novel Death At The White Hart into a TV series.

Culture

3 w. ago ‘Detransition Baby’ author Torrey Peters: ‘Being trans is a particular constellation of feelings that we all have’ 

The Women’s Prize-nominated author Torrey Peters speaks to Hannah Ewens about horny lumberjacks, creating work for a dark political future in the US and why she won’t stop writing from the trans female perspective

Culture