Ba Jin
Obituary: Chinese writer who made the journey from anarchism to Mao and back again.
Chomsky is voted world’s top public intellectual
· Missing from list: young, women, and the French · Honour leaves linguistics professor underwhelmed
Holy war looms over Disney’s Narnia epic
As the UK prepares for a CS Lewis movie blockbuster this Christmas, a row has broken out about its Christian message.
Cool knight
The Observer Profile: Christopher Meyer: Our former man in Washington won hearts as the consummate diplomat. But will his forthcoming memoir blow the lid on the lead-up to the Iraqi war? Maybe, but it would be out of character.
Why do we believe in God?
Faith in a higher being is as old as humanity itself. But what sparked the Divine Idea? Did our earliest ancestors gain some evolutionary advantage through their shared religious feelings? In these extracts from his latest book, Robert Winston ponders the biggest question of them all.
Nobel winner’s work is violent porn, says juror
· Author quits in protest at last year's award to Jelinek· Attack comes on eve of naming of 2005 laureate
‘I was a woman in a warrior’s world’
General Janis Karpinski was commander of Abu Ghraib prison when the abuse scandal erupted. In a memoir out this week she reveals her fury at being made the scapegoat
National treasures
Bestselling author Dave Eggers is brandishing his cutlass in defence of underpaid teachers. Dan Glaister visits him at a centre he runs for students in San Francisco.
When Maya met Madhur
Maya Angelou and Madhur Jaffrey were born worlds apart, but for both, cooking and sharing food were key to their identities. We invited them for lunch to talk about recipes, love and memory
Mary Lee Settle
Obituary: An American writer in love with England and her native south, the winner of the National Book Award of America in 1978 for her novel Blood Tie, a study of British and American expatriates in Turkey, has died aged 87.
A treat for rightwing tots
Oliver Burkeman: Anyone who believes, with Whitney Houston, that children are our future, will probably want to pay close attention to a children's book that's outselling almost all others in the US. Help, Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed! by Katherine Debrecht is proof that there is no front on which the American culture wars cannot be fought.