‘I’ve been poor for a long time’: after many rejections, Karen Jennings is up for the Booker

The South African author struggled to find a publisher for her Booker-nominated novel An Island, which only had a print-run of 500 copies. She talks about rejection, her country and believing in herself

‘The best summer of my life’ – Kae Tempest takes Sophocles on a gender odyssey

The writer has turned a Greek tragedy about a marooned soldier into an all-women play for the Covid era. They reveal how its creation mirrored their own journey

Eimear McBride: ‘Women grapple with shame because we’re held to a higher standard’

The novelist on her first book of nonfiction – about women and disgust – and the complexities of prize culture

SA Cosby: ‘The holy trinity of southern fiction is race, class and sex’

The bestselling Virginia crime writer on getting his big break, what southern fiction means to him, and setting his next murder mystery right after Trump is elected

Baxter Dury: ‘Everything was about Dad. It was the only way he knew how to survive’

The musician talks about growing up with a pop star dad, escaping his shadow – and the 6ft 7in drug dealer who lived with them

Jeanette Winterson: ‘The male push is to discard the planet: all the boys are going off into space’

The writer’s new essay collection covers 200 years of women and science. She discusses burning books and the ensuing Twitter storm, the end of her marriage, and why a move into politics could be next

David Thewlis: ‘It does get to you, spending more waking hours as a character than oneself’

The actor on his new novel about an irascible director, his faux-feud with Christopher Eccleston and his ‘secret’ marriage

I Alone Can Fix It: Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker on their Trump bestseller

The Washington Post reporters have unleashed a second startling story of incompetence and malevolence in the White House

Leïla Slimani: ‘I think I’m always writing about women, domination, violence’

The French-Moroccan author on why she writes, the complexity of identity, and the first book of a trilogy based on her family history

Jean Hanff Korelitz: ‘I wanted to be a literary novelist. But I realised that I liked plot’

The author of the book behind TV smash The Undoing talks about her new novel The Plot, a thriller about plagiarism – and how she fell for Hugh Grant

Chris Packham: ‘People like me have a very aggravated sense of injustice’

At his New Forest home, the broadcaster and activist discusses autism, Extinction Rebellion and his Self-Isolating Bird Club

Novelist Elif Shafak: ‘I’ve always believed in inherited pain’

The award-winning Turkish-British writer talks about generational trauma, food in exile and how heavy metal helps her write

Jess Phillips: ‘I enjoy feeling angry. It inspires me’

The Labour MP on the sit-down strike she organised in primary school, how she copes with death threats and what she reads to relax

John Boyne: ‘People were criticising my book when they hadn’t read it’

John Boyne talks about the online backlash to his recent YA book and how it inspired his new novel about social media

Léa Seydoux: ‘Art is a sexual energy. It’s the highest form of creation’

She has four films at Cannes film festival, but instead of strutting the Riviera red carpet the actor is isolating in Paris. She talks creativity, sex scenes and the joy of Bond stunts