Marlon James: ‘Violence is violent and sex is sexy. You are supposed to be appalled’

The Booker prize-winning novelist on growing up gay in 80s Jamaica, his African fantasy trilogy – and how his mother’s job as a detective has influenced his writing

What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they’ve enjoyed in February

David Baddiel, Houman Barekat and Guardian readers Rosa Jones and Elizabeth Best discuss the titles they’ve read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments

Olivia Laing: ‘I’m sorry, but Jane Eyre is a horrendous little hysteric’

The British writer on discovering Barthes, channelling Burroughs and appreciating the talents of Patricia Highsmith’s Mr Ripley

The Colony by Audrey Magee review – an allegory of the Troubles

Part piercing satire, part fable, this discomfiting novel sends an Englishman and a Frenchman to an Irish island on a fateful day in 1979

Son of Sin by Omar Sakr review – a queer Muslim boy comes of age in poetic, vivid debut

A sexual awakening underscores bigger tensions – of faith, racism, tradition and shame – in a tender and candid first novel from the prize-winning poet

Leonard Cohen: previously unpublished novel to be released in autumn

Written in 1956, A Ballet of Lepers will be published alongside other short fiction and a radio play from Cohen’s early career

Dance Move by Wendy Erskine review – a propulsive second collection

Set in Belfast, these pleasurable stories of magical thinking and unlived lives go straight to the emotional core

Top 10 books about Welsh identity

In poetry, memoir, fiction and history these books show Wales’s self-definition becoming surer and more confident

Brown Girls by Daphne Palasi Andreades review – raised by Queens

This boisterous New York coming-of-age tale uses its collective narrator to tell forceful truths about women and race

Run and Hide by Pankaj Mishra review – a lyrical letter from the new India

The author’s first novel in 20 years explores the modern values of Modi’s India and the transnational lives of its influential elite

The best recent thrillers – review roundup

Danya Kukafka upends the power dynamic of male serial killer and female victim in a thrilling second novel

My Pen Is the Wing of a Bird: new short-story book celebrates the work of Afghan women

Untold Narratives founder Lucy Hannah’s just-published collection showcases the fiction of marginalised writers in Afghanistan

In brief: The Last Emperor of Mexico; Iron Curtain; Questors, Jesters and Renegades – reviews

A gripping Habsburg history, a tense, witty Soviet romance and an affectionate account of amateur dramatics

How to Gut a Fish by Sheila Armstrong – haunting short stories

The Irish author’s debut fiction is a keenly observed and deeply unsettling collection of tales

Mercia’s Take by Daniel Wiles review – life at the coalface

A miner dreams of a better future for his son in this visceral tale of the men who powered the Industrial Revolution