Siddhartha Mukherjee: ‘I don’t like writing as if I don’t exist’

The Pulitzer-winning science author on combining the history of cell biology with personal stories, the influence of Salman Rushdie and why he likes to write in bed

Garth Marenghi: ‘Many writers cite me as an influence … and I will be suing them all’

After changing horror for ever with his TV series Darkplace, the dream weaver and horror novelist disappeared for two decades. Now he returns with a chilling new novel, TerrorTome, and some strong words for pretenders to his crown (back off, Richard Osman)

Jonathan Coe: ‘We’re a nation driven by emotion and not by reason’

Tackling Brexit, Boris and his mother’s death during the pandemic, Jonathan Coe’s new state-of-the-nation novel puts Britain on the couch

‘I’m changing Congress’: how Cori Bush brought her lived experience to Capitol Hill

Member of ‘the Squad’ on how her abortion experience, sexual assault and front-line fight in Ferguson, Missouri, affected her politics

‘Joy is my daily practice’: Heather Rose on overcoming tragedy and choosing to live a happy life

From dancing into other worlds in North America to losing her vocabulary in the Australian desert, the Stella prize-winning author is taking nothing for granted

Mud, murder and homemade schnapps: eco-thriller Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead roars back

As Complicité’s Simon McBurney brings Olga Tokarczuk’s feminist detective story to the stage, the pair discuss its eccentric sleuth, isolated landscape and climate alarm

Neal Ascherson at 90: ‘Journalism was easier in my time. You had more time to think’

The distinguished former Observer foreign correspondent reflects on an extraordinary life – beginning with a horrifying brush with a Luftwaffe machine gunner

Yomi Ṣode: ‘The last thing I want to be is a preacher’

The poet and performer on his debut poetry collection, drawing on Caravaggio and the concept of ‘manorism’

‘Writers all want to be rock stars’: Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka on ghosts, war and childish dreams

Set during the Sri Lankan civil war and narrated by a dead man, The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida is part murder mystery, part political satire and part love story. Its author recalls the grim events that inspired it – and the editor who kept pushing him to do better

‘Success is a seductive thing’: Ralph Macchio on life after the Karate Kid

Ralph Macchio assured himself of Hollywood immortality when he was cast in The Karate Kid, but then followed a long fallow spell. Now, at last, he’s back – and he wouldn’t have it any other way

‘I decided to share my voice’: Estela Juarez on her mother, who Trump deported, and her new book

Just nine when zero-tolerance policy saw her mother sent to Mexico, now a teen, the Floridian has written a book for children

‘Devoid of shame’: January 6 cop Michael Fanone on Trump’s Republican party

A pro-Trump mob almost killed him – and some politicians want to pretend it never happened

Nick Hornby on Dickens and Prince: ‘They were both superstars in their own lifetimes’

The author on the twin heroes of his new book, and the different challenges of screenwriting and novels

Malorie Blackman: ‘Thank God that’s done!’

The former children’s laureate on the end of the Noughts & Crosses series, why her memoir is the hardest book she’s written, and her soft spot for murder detective games

Autistic scholar Temple Grandin: ‘The education system is screening out visual thinkers’

By favouring verbal thinkers, says the author and animal scientist, essential skills are being lost. Her new book aims to demonstrate the power of processing information in different ways