Anna Funder: ‘I clearly didn’t know what I was doing … but always knew I was going to write’

The writer and newly installed University of Sydney professor on the lure of Berlin, authors versus AI, and writing ‘from a place of admiration’

Edge of Armageddon: why does one of the world’s top thinkers believe we’re nearing nuclear apocalypse?

In a chilling new book, theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli says we’re back on the brink – and this time, leaders chronically lack the nous of Kennedy and Khrushchev. So why is he against rearming?

‘We’re witnessing the end of the America that made our lives possible’: author Eddie Glaude on US’s 250th birthday

Glaude’s new book shows political turmoil historically reaching its boiling point around Fourth of July celebrations

Richer than Musk: Joyce Carol Oates on her 88 years of watching, writing, feeling and loving

The writer made headlines when she accused the world’s wealthiest man of lacking joy, culture, a sense of beauty … Meanwhile, her own life has been an attempt to understand and explain the world. She talks us through her latest book

M John Harrison: ‘If we met a real alien we’d have no clue what they thought’

At 80, SF author M John Harrison is producing some of his best work. He talks about finding his voice, alien intelligence and the advice from Iain Banks that still spurs him on

Candice Carty-Williams: ‘People feel very attached to Queenie’

The breakout success of her debut created a publishing scramble for Black writers, but has that appetite for diversity endured? Carty-Williams talks about wanting to quit the TV adaptation, why now is the perfect time for her sequel

James O’Loghlin: ‘I’d lie awake at night thinking: “Is there one thing I can do that will help my dying friend?”’

The broadcaster, comedian and writer on the lifelong friendship that turned him into an activist

‘Don DeLillo gave me his blessing’: film director Ben Rivers on how fan mail from the Underworld author led to his latest work

When Rivers received a surprise letter from DeLillo, it encouraged him to set the author’s one-act play in an adult-free, postapocalyptic world

‘We can’t give up on Afghans’: Lyse Doucet on the remarkable ‘people’s history’ that won her the Women’s prize

The BBC’s chief international correspondent was awarded the prestigious nonfiction prize for The Finest Hotel in Kabul – which she hopes will bring more attention to the Taliban’s draconian treatment of women

‘I want to be other people’s cautionary tale’: how do you financially prepare for a parent’s death?

Author Beth Pinsker discusses the documents that matter more than a will – and why so few of us have them

James Ellroy: ‘It’s satanic to me, the dependency people have on computers’

The outspoken crime novelist talks about his provocative new book, his hatred of technology and why the film adaptation of LA Confidential is a ‘turkey’

‘Writing is exactly like love – you need to do it in the dark’: novelist Leila Slimani on starting a new chapter in her life

Now in residence at the Madrid Prado, the author talks about its dark, inspirational Goyas, the clandestine nature of her writing – and why she finally wrote about her jailed then posthumously exonerated father

‘I want to bury it under a roundabout!’ Kim Noble on his unusual approach to promoting his graphic novel

The unsettling performance artist, who has made some electrifying stage shows in his time, is taking a leap into literature with an eye-opening book, In Pursuit of a Wonderful Nothing. Quite a hard sell, he thinks

‘My parents didn’t talk about the past’: how director Caroline Huppert recovered her family’s wartime secrets

Memoir tells how the Jewish and Catholic parents of actor Isabelle and Caroline Huppert fell in love amid the rise of the Nazis. She explains why she wanted her ‘children’s children’ to know the story

‘I refuse to be a second-class citizen in my own land’: Taiwanese International Booker winner Yáng Shuāng-zǐ

The author of historical novel Taiwan Travelogue, and its translator Lin King, discuss the threat from Beijing, LGBTQ+ rights and the island’s culinary delicacies