Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen review – anything can happen on this remote Scottish island

Life is turned upside-down by a new arrival, in this weird and charming tale of nature and family – with a guest appearance from the ghost of Robert Louis Stevenson

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o obituary

Distinguished Kenyan novelist, poet and academic who championed writing in African languages rather than in English

‘I’m here to open doors’: Bernardine Evaristo on success, controversy and why she plans to donate her £100k award

The Girl, Woman, Other author has this week been awarded a one-off Women’s prize award for her outstanding contribution. She talks about her long road to recognition, and using her profile to support other writers

‘Publishing is a dream, but this has also been one of the hardest years of my life’: Palestinian author Yasmin Zaher

The novelist has been awarded the Dylan Thomas prize for young writers. She talks about giving up medical training to pursue fiction – and the childhood memories that inspired her winning debut, The Coin

The Director by Daniel Kehlmann review – the author’s best work yet

This portrait of German film-maker GW Pabst and his moral struggles under the Nazis has the darkness and ambiguity of a modern Grimms’ fairytale

King of Dirt by Holden Sheppard review – a grim portrait of homophobia and masculinity

In his first book for adults, Sheppard explores his gay protagonist’s desperately sad, self-sabotaging behaviour as he struggles with being gay in rural Australia

Brighton Rock by Graham Greene audiobook review – Sam West captures the menace of this modern classic

The seaside town’s seedy underbelly is vividly evoked in this timeless tale of murder, romance and revenge

Where to start with: Edmund White

After the news of White’s death, here is a guide to a foundational writer of gay lives and elder statesman of American queer literary fiction

Twelve Post-War Tales by Graham Swift review – haunting visions from a Booker winner

The author’s conceptual agility is on display in these short stories surveying the trauma of conflict and the challenges of survival

Bernardine Evaristo scoops Women’s prize outstanding contribution award

One-off £100,000 prize awarded to Girl, Women, Other writer for entire body of work and ‘dedication to uplifting under-represented voices’

‘Five years from now, these readers will be soldiers’: The Russian literature encouraging teens to enlist

Master-race stories of heroic characters battling against zombie Nazis and western spies to recover imperial grandeur are a bleak new spin on an old propaganda tradition

‘Deliciously addictive’, ‘dripping with suspense’: the best Australian books out in June

Each month Guardian Australia editors and critics pick the upcoming titles they have devoured – or can’t wait to get their hands on

The Möbius Book by Catherine Lacey review – beyond the bounds of fiction

You can read it from either end, and go round again, as memoir collides with invention in a brilliant interrogation of art, faith and relationships

‘Men need liberation too’: do we need more male novelists?

As a small press launches dedicated to new male fiction, authors including Anne Enright and Nikesh Shukla ask if men are really being pushed out of publishing

The best recent translated fiction – review roundup

The Propagandist by Cécile Desprairies; Lovers of Franz K by Burhan Sönmez; Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski; Waist Deep by Linea Maja Ernst