‘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

Ghost Wedding by David Park review – a thought-provoking novel about the power of the past

The romance is beautifully drawn in this tale of two couples whose lives overlap at a Northern Irish manor house, a century apart

Aidan Chambers obituary

Teacher and writer of ‘youth novels’, which he defended as a literature worth studying and preserving

Kataraina by Becky Manawatu review – a generous and masterful novel

Both a sequel and prequel to the Māori and Pākehā author’s acclaimed debut, Auē, Kataraina is filled with heart-achingly beautiful vignettes

Aftertaste by Daria Lavelle review – what exactly is ‘clairgustance’?

A chef can taste the favourite foods of the departed, in this debut mash-up of satire, ghost story and slushy romance

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, giant of African literature, dies aged 87

Kenyan writer’s death announced by his daughter, who wrote: ‘He lived a full life, fought a good fight’

‘Infused with the fire born of resistance’: the magic of the Calabash literary festival

Marlon James, Ian McEwan and Sheryl Lee Ralph lit up the Jamaican book event, celebrating the small island’s gargantuan cultural footprint with readings, discussions and DJs

Spent by Alison Bechdel review – the graphic novelist faces up to midlife

In this playfully fictionalised memoir, Alison runs a pygmy goat sanctuary while making a name for herself on stage and screen

Ripeness by Sarah Moss – a beautifully written novel of place and identity

An English woman’s tale of migration, alternating between mid-60s Italy and present-day Ireland, considers family heritage and the treatment of refugees

The Empress Murders by Toby Schmitz review – jazz age mystery packed with corpses and charisma

The actor’s first novel, set on (and sometimes narrated by) a luxury boat in 1925, swerves from cosy Christie homage into something far more brutal

American Dirt author Jeanine Cummins: ‘I didn’t need to justify my right to write that book’

Five years after being vilified for exploiting the migrant experience in her bestseller, the author reveals how the backlash inspired her latest novel