‘I had a chance to pass my mum’s story on’: Kazuo Ishiguro on growing up in shadow of the Nagasaki bomb

The film version of A Pale View of Hills, the Nobel-winner’s tale of loss, exile and a pregnant radioactive bride, is about to premiere at Cannes. The writer explains why this story is so personal to him

‘Buddhism and Björk help me handle fame’: novelist Ocean Vuong

On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous made him a literary superstar. Now the Vietnamese American author is exploring his working-class roots in an ambitious follow‑up

Sarah Wilson: ‘Worrying about your gut biome when the world’s burning is too indulgent’

From I Quit Sugar to the ‘shittification of life’, writer and journalist Sarah Wilson on breaking up with hope and finding happiness in collapse theory

Simon Armitage: ‘Our pace of life is unhelpful to nature, it’s burning it up’

Exclusive: Poet laureate says new book, inspired by wildlife at Cornish garden, is a plea for humans to slow down and reflect

A child on thin ice: EA Hanks on life with her abusive mother – and world-famous father

One half of the author’s early life was spent with a mother who struggled with addiction, her mental health and caring responsibilities. The other was with her father Tom on film sets and in a house full of love and structure. She discusses her road trip back into her complicated past

‘Music is never fixed in me’ … cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason on surviving a ‘volcano of racism’

A remark about Rule, Britannia! led to uproar but the star musician is concentrating on the joy and power of classical music. As his first book is published, he talks to Charlotte Higgins• Read an exclusive extract from Kanneh-Mason’s new book

‘You have to be taken inside Poirot’s brain’: Ken Ludwig on the secret to adapting Agatha Christie

The US playwright and anglophile behind much-revived comedies has a flair for crime and is following a crowd-pleasing Murder on the Orient Express with Death on the Nile

Writer Saba Sams: ‘I wanted it to be sexy and really messy’

The Send Nudes author, one of Granta’s pick of the best young British novelists, on young motherhood, feminism and why we need to break the rules around love

‘Beyoncé and Solange tell me off all the time’: Tina Knowles on raising superstars, surviving cancer and growing up under segregation

Pop’s top matriarch is finally getting the credit she’s due. She talks about her shock diagnosis, conspiracy theories about her family, and the Instagram posts that get her in trouble with her kids

Stephen Mangan: ‘With three people in a bed, who goes in the middle?’

The Split actor and children’s author on throuples, using his sons as a focus group, and running the London marathon

Novelist Kiley Reid: ‘Consumption cannot fix racism’

The American author on the follow-up to her bestselling debut Such a Fun Age, why she loves characters you want to shake, and reading 160 novels for the Booker prize

Climatologist Friederike Otto: ‘The more unequal the society is, the more severe the climate disaster’

The German scientist on her new book arguing that inequality, wealth and sexism are making the climate crisis worse – and what we need to do about it

‘Marriage feels like a hostage situation, and motherhood a curse’: Japanese author Sayaka Murata

The Convenience Store Woman author is renowned for challenging social norms in darkly weird near-future fiction. She discusses sex, feminism and her struggles to be an ‘ordinary earthling’

‘I’d love Keanu to read it’: Ione Skye on bisexuality, infidelity and her wild tell-all memoir

The actor’s aptly named memoir Say Everything has been praised as raw, revealing, disarming and horny

Journalist Ahmed Alnaouq: ‘It’s our duty to make Gaza’s stories immortal’

The Gaza-born, UK-based journalist, who lost 21 family members in an Israeli airstrike on his homeland, has taken pieces from an online platform he co-created for young Palestinians and collated them in a new book