‘If I was American, I’d be worried about my country’: Margaret Atwood answers questions from Ai Weiwei, Rebecca Solnit and more
Democracy, birds and hangover cures – famous fans put their questions to the visionary author
‘I knew I was doing something I shouldn’t’: Karl Ove Knausgård on the fallout from My Struggle and the dark side of ambition
The Norwegian author on his autofictional epic, moving to London, and the psychopath at the heart of his new novel
Can ceramics be demonic? Edmund de Waal’s obsession with a deeply disturbing Dane
The great potter explains why he turned his decades-long fixation with Axel Salto – maker of unsettling stoneware full of tentacle sproutings and knotty growths – into a new show
‘It’s notoriously hard to write about sex’: David Szalay on Flesh, his astounding Booker prize-winner
The novel’s protagonist is violent, libidinous and so inarticulate he says ‘OK’ some 500 times. So how did the author turn his story into a tragic masterpiece?
‘Erin Patterson remains mysterious to me’: Helen Garner, Sarah Krasnostein and Chloe Hooper on the mushroom murders
Three of Australia’s most acclaimed writers have teamed up to write The Mushroom Tapes, about the weeks they spent at the triple-murder trial, picking apart lies, media ethics and evil
‘I’m never surprised when I read about a woman murdering a man’: Helen Garner on her Baillie Gifford prize-winning diaries
Her first book outraged Australian critics – but now she’s scooped the UK’s top nonfiction prize. She talks about female anger, becoming cool at 82 – and why winning made her feel like a stunned mullet
‘It is the scariest of times’: Margaret Atwood on defying Trump, banned books – and her score-settling memoir
At 86, she’s a literary seer and saint – and queen of the Canadian resistance. So what does the writer make of our dystopian world?
Matthew Reilly: ‘In Australia, there’s a sense of community. In America, it is always the individual first.’
The best-selling thriller writer on golf, writing an autistic hero and why he’s not afraid to make political statements in Trump’s America
Photographer Coreen Simpson’s illustrious career capturing Toni Morrison and Muhammad Ali: ‘I’ve never gotten bored’
Star-studded work from Simpson, whose instincts also led to success in jewelry design, is assembled in a new photo book
The Beijing courier who went viral: how Hu Anyan wrote about delivering parcels – and became a bestseller
Like so many others, his days have been spent in the gig economy, moving from one precarious job to another, often tied to a gruelling 996 shift pattern. He discusses the harsh realities of modern working life in China, and far beyond
Lily King: ‘What is life without love?’
The American author discusses our need for fiction in an age of disconnection, the challenges of growing up with 14 step-siblings, and why she’s going ‘all in’ on romance
‘Indecency has become a new hallmark’: writer and historian Jelani Cobb on race in Donald Trump’s America
In a new essay collection, the dean of Columbia University’s graduate school of journalism makes a compelling argument that everything is connected and nothing is inevitable about racial justice or democracy
‘These men think they’ve done nothing wrong’: the philosopher who tried to understand Gisèle Pelicot’s rapists
When 50 men went on trial in France, accused of raping a woman who had been drugged by her husband, Manon Garcia was in the courtroom – and in the prosecutors’ closing arguments. How does she make sense of what happened?
‘Rock stars would be like, Yeah, bring the kid in’: Cameron Crowe on his wild years as a teenage music journalist
The film-maker told his own story in Almost Famous. Now he’s looking back on his younger days with Bowie and Led Zeppelin and revealing the family tragedy he’s finally facing up to
‘I’m going to write about all of it’: author Chris Kraus on success, drugs and I Love Dick
A decade after her debut became a cult hit, the US author talks about the true crime that inspired her latest novel, #MeToo overreach and being married to an addict