Cliches and capital letters

Laila Lalami: Martin Amis has a simplistic and ill-informed view of the world, and of Islam in particular.

In praise of … Joachim Fest

Leader: Twentieth-century German history is a minefield, and few have negotiated it deftly enough to make a lasting difference to our understanding of Hitler and the Third Reich.

The Hammett of Havana

His award-winning crime novels feature transvestites, crooked officials and moralising newsreaders. For some critics, it's too dark a picture of Cuba. But, Leonardo Padura tells Duncan Campbell, his work reflects the reality of his country.

The age of horrorism (part one)

An exclusive essay by Martin Amis: On the eve of the fifth anniversary of 9/11, one of Britain's most celebrated and original writers analyses - and abhors - the rise of extreme Islamism. In a penetrating and wide-ranging essay he offers a trenchant critique of the grotesque creed and questions the West's faltering response to this eruption of evil.

Book says CIA tried to provoke Saddam to war

More than a year before the invasion of Iraq the CIA devised a plan to use Iraqi exile fighters to seize an air base and declare a revolt against Saddam Hussein in the hope that his response would create a pretext for war, according to a book published tomorrow.

Pourquoi écrire en anglais?

This month's literary sensation in France is Les Bienveillantes, a 900-page novel about the Holocaust, written in French by an American, Jonathan Littell. Is it an advantage to write in a foreign language, asks John Mullan

Lie back and think of Jesus

After seven decades as an atheist, Fay Weldon has found God. But has she stopped believing in women? She tells Stuart Jeffries why they should stop complaining, be nicer to men and forget about orgasms.