Claire Lynch wins Nero Gold prize for debut about 1980s homophobia
The £30,000 award went to novel A Family Matter, about a lesbian affair and a custody battle
Susan Choi and Katie Kitamura among authors longlisted for Women’s prize for fiction
Sixteen novels are in contention for the £30,000 award, now in its 31st year, with settings ranging from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata
The Quantity Theory of Morality by Will Self review – raucously inventive state-of-the-nation satire
Thirty-five years on from his debut collection The Quantity Theory of Insanity, Self takes aim at London’s chattering classes in an excoriating vision of moral decline
They by Helle Helle review – a novel to make the reader slow down and take notice
Minimalist but never austere, this mother-daughter portrait from the Danish author finds its power in everyday detail
The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain review – virtuoso portrait of Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath’s final year
Portraying the breakdown of the couple’s marriage through the eyes of the people around them, this deeply researched and utterly convincing debut is an astonishing achievement
Dan Simmons, author of Hyperion and The Terror, dies aged 77
Award-winning science fiction and horror writer died in Colorado on 21 February with family at his side
Butter author Asako Yuzuki: ‘I’m very far from the ideal Japanese woman’
Butter, her novel about a female serial killer, was a global hit. As Asako Yuzuki’s second book is published in English, she talks about criticism at home – and why she’ll be writing darker stories in the future
The National Year of Reading celebrates the ‘joy’ of books. But let’s not forget they can also be deeply troubling, too
Encounters with great art can be absorbing, unsettling and even painful. How has this been tamed into ‘reading for pleasure’, asks Charlotte Higgins, the Guardian’s chief culture writer
What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in February
Francis Spufford, Manish Chauhan and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments
Scholar, seductress, alchemist: who was the real Cleopatra?
The Egyptian queen has fascinated me from childhood, but following the archives led only to ancient gossip and Roman propaganda. Fiction was the way to liberate her from misogynist myth
Ben Markovits: ‘I used to think any book concerned with people falling in love can’t be very good’
The British-American author on arguing about Jane Austen, the joys of Jerome K Jerome, and revising his opinion of Philip Roth
On Not Climbing Mountains by Claire Thomas review – impressive, for a patient reader
This ambitious novel follows a grieving woman who distracts herself with research on famous names who had connections to Switzerland
Railsong by Rahul Bhattacharya review – a heartfelt tale of life on the Indian railways
We follow one woman across decades of change in this deeply compassionate novel of independence and dreams
Cees Nooteboom obituary
Dutch novelist, poet and travel writer who reported on the Hungarian revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall
My Bags Are Big by Tibor Fischer review – how to make it in crypto
Amusing oddballs populate a wise-cracking wheeler-dealer’s tale of leaving London for Dubai in search of loot and laughs