‘We’d been through so much’: Jean Hannah Edelstein on breasts – and life without them

All her life Jean Hannah Edelstein had tried to feel comfortable with her breasts, battling unwelcome attention and breastfeeding woes. But then came cancer and a double mastectomy – and she realised she was losing something she loved

Novelist Oisín Fagan: ‘I was at the altar of literature and had its fire in me’

The Irish author on his new ‘violent seafaring epic’, his appetite for body horror and living his entire life book-first

‘The anger became bigger than shame’: the writer whose memoir of child abuse has taken France by storm

As Neige Sinno’s critically acclaimed memoir about being sexually abused by her stepfather is published in English, she reveals how writing her story has helped set her free

‘Society SUCKS!’ The fanatical diary of a teen scribbler who threw herself into punk

Don’t live like everyone else! Angela Jaeger met every act going in punk, in New York and London – and had crushes on them all. Now 65, she talks us through her thrill-filled diaries

Journalist Graydon Carter: ‘If there was another 9/11 this week, I don’t think the world would rush to support us’

The former Vanity Fair editor on how #MeToo changed Hollywood, what Christopher Hitchens would make of the US today, and the value of a handkerchief

Author Vincenzo Latronico: ‘I left Italy out of sadness’

The International Booker-longlisted Italian novelist on why he chose to rewrite Georges Perec, his preference for description over dialogue and being part of an anti-gentrification collective in Milan

Mathematician Adam Kucharski: ‘Our concepts of what we can prove are shifting’

The epidemiologist who advised on Ebola and Covid discusses the value of evidence in light of AI and social media, and how the notion of fact has long been divisive

‘How can one day be so voluminous?’: the Danish author who has written her own version of Groundhog Day

Solvej Balle had been planning her time-loop novel for a decade when the Bill Murray comedy beat her to it. Thirty years and five volumes later, it is longlisted for the International Booker

The Five author Hallie Rubenhold: ‘I really hate true crime’

The award-winning writer turned the Jack the Ripper case on its head. Now she is giving Dr Crippen the same treatment – and questioning how we tell stories about murderous men

‘At 60, the bulk of your life is lived. What’s left now?’ Ralph Fiennes and Uberto Pasolini on their ripped and radical take on The Odyssey

The actor and director on why The Return took 30 years to make, their joy at persuading Juliette Binoche to join them – and the punishing regime that earned Fiennes his battle-scarred physique

Poet Jason Allen-Paisant: ‘We belong in the picture’

The Jamaican-born author on exploring nature and black identity in his nonfiction debut, his chaotic writing habits, and how the TS Eliot prize changed his life

Reid Hoffman: ‘Start using AI deeply. It is a huge intelligence amplifier’

The co-founder of LinkedIn and Democrat donor remains confident that AI can be good for all of us – if its introduction is handled in the right way

George Orwell and me: Richard Blair on life with his extraordinary father

The literary giant’s only child reflects on his father’s devotion in their days together in rural Scotland, his early death, his genius as a writer – and his reputation as a womaniser

Michael Lewis and John Lanchester: ‘Trump is a trust-destroying machine’

Before the 2024 election, the two authors tried to stop Donald Trump’s plan to gut the US federal government with an investigation that transformed the image of civil servants from bureaucrats to superheroes. Now their worst fears have been realised

Róisín Lanigan: ‘I moved to London and got bedbugs’

The Northern Irish journalist turned author on writing a haunted house novel for the rental age, her trick for capturing dialogue and favourite millennial reads