China banks on bloody blockbuster to win friends … and Oscars

State partially funds Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War – starring Christian Bale and set during 1937 Rape of Nanking – to boost nation's film industry

The Bookseller of Kabul author cleared of invading Afghan family’s privacy

Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad, who spent months with bookseller Shah Muhammad Rais, tells of relief over ruling

The TS Eliot prize cannot survive without sponsorship at a time of cuts

Gillian Clarke: The Poetry Book Society asked hard questions of Aurum, but most poets earn little from writing and prizes are vital

John Milton, part 3: does Paradise Lost really attempt to justify God’s ways?

Jessica Martin: How to believe: Milton allows his story to carry him, like Orpheus, down into hell: blind in this world, he prays to see clearly there

Muslims are not betraying Islam in embracing liberal democracy

Mustafa Akyol: It is far better to propose Islam than impose it, for if there is no liberty there can be no genuine religiosity

Kepler 22-b? I was there first

Brian Aldiss: Helliconia, the new Earth I imagined 30 years ago, has now been located by Nasa just a few light years away

The new Wuthering Heights does not ignore racism; it tackles it full on

Response: Arnold's film bravely bucks the Hollywood trend of colour-blind entertainment, says Sophie Mayer

Mexico mocks presidential candidate for literature festival faux pas

Asked which books changed his life, Enrique Peña Nieto lists two Jeffrey Archers, misattributed Mexican classic and Bible

Alan Moore attacks Frank Miller in comic book war of words

Moore condemns Miller's work as misogynistic, homophobic and misguided after Sin City creator's attack on Occupy movement

In praise of … horses in literature

Editorial: Whatever their narrative purpose, they are invariably lovable and beloved, and never ignoble – and an expression of an ideal

John Milton, part 2: marrying the epic with the sacred

Jessica Martin: How to believe: In choosing the epic form, Milton had to mould limited biblical source material to fit a very particular way of telling his story