Rafia Zakaria: ‘A lot of white female professors told me to quit’
The activist and author discusses why there is no one-size-fits-all feminism and her aim to create work that comforts women of colour who have been ‘gaslit’
Sally Rooney on the hell of fame: ‘It doesn’t seem to work in any real way for anyone’
At 30, the Normal People author is already the most talked-about novelist of her generation. As she readies her third novel, she’s bracing for more (unwanted) attention
Fran Lebowitz: ‘If people disagree with me, so what?’
With a hit Netflix series and The Fran Lebowitz Reader now published in the UK, the American wit talks about failing to write, her dislike of Andy Warhol and her best friend Toni Morrison
Scotland’s new makar Kathleen Jamie: ‘Poetry is at the heart of our culture’
The writer, ‘not naturally a public eye person’, reveals her ambitions as national poet with convulsive changes to the country and climate looming
Alan Johnson: ‘John Betjeman was wrong about Slough’
The former health secretary and acclaimed memoirist on his rock’n’roll past, how the Litvinenko poisoning inspired his new thriller, and how he’d have handled Covid
Neuroscientist Anil Seth: ‘We risk not understanding the central mystery of life’
The professor of cognitive and computational neuroscience discusses his work to develop a scientific explanation for how the brain conjures consciousness
Paula Hawkins: ‘I wasn’t interested in writing the same book again’
The latest novel by the author of The Girl on the Train is a return to form. She talks fame, persistence and remaining an outsider
Elizabeth Day: ‘A lot of people were yearning to talk about failure’
The author on her chart-topping podcast, her influencer cat and how she created a cafe vibe at home in order to write
Sarfraz Manzoor on how prejudice works both ways in British Muslim communities
The broadcaster and writer believes mutual respect between different cultures and faith groups in the UK is possible – he hopes his book will change views
‘We always see sex from the man’s view’: Cammie Toloui, the peep show performer who peeped back
Turning her camera on her customers, the sex worker and photojournalist exposed the male gaze to itself – and opened up a world of shame and desire
Paul Mason: ‘Modern fascism’s interests are being represented in government by rightwing populists’
The former Channel 4 News broadcaster on writing at 4am, reading Carlo Rovelli and the danger posed by the new wave of fascism that’s on the rise across the world
Claire-Louise Bennett: ‘If there was a revolution, I’d be there’
The award-winning author on Beckett, Marxism, and why she resists identifying herself as a writer
Femi Fadugba: ‘There’s no reason why Peckham couldn’t be the theoretical physics capital of the world’
The physicist‑turned-YA novelist talks about choosing to set The Upper World in south London, and how it was snapped up by Daniel Kaluuya for Netflix. Plus read an extract
Amia Srinivasan: ‘Sex as a subject isn’t weird. It’s very, very serious’
With her debut book, The Right to Sex, a 36-year-old Oxford don is dazzling everyone. She discusses porn, gender dysphoria - and why her students are no snowflakes
Martin Amis: ‘Style isn’t something you apply later’
The novelist on making Philip Larkin his fictional father, why writing has become a battle, and his new work about race in the US