Think you still have that novel in you? Take some writing tips from Leo Tolstoy, Muriel Spark, John Steinbeck and other famous authors

Anti-racists should focus less on symbols and more on present-day manifestations

Merger of two schools to promote greater racial mix marks progress from divided past

From Cheever to Ron Rash, Carver to Eudora Welty, O’Connor to Richard Ford, some of the finest American writing is to be found in the short form

‘Jenny Erpenbeck should become the prize’s first German winner with ‘The End of Days’’

‘A Brief History of Seven Killings’ is based on attempt to kill reggae king Bob Marley

Nobel laureates Faulkner, O’Neill, Hemingway and Steinbeck were alcoholics, as were Brendan Behan, Dylan Thomas, Jean Rhys and many more. Anne O’Neill explores why

Brought to Book Q&A: Irish author and academic on how he writes and what he reads

Richard Rankin Russell’s book explores the poet’s fidelity to his birthplace in Co Derry

Lloyd’s grandfather, born the son of slaves, refused to be cowed in a time of deep racial tensions in the US, and something of that steely confidence was passed down to the Memphis great

‘A shimmering debut’ from a ‘dazzling writer’

`Use it or lose it'

Most readers of contemporary fiction would struggle to name 10 Brazilian authors. Novelist João Almino met a group of literature students at Trinity recently to tell us what we’re missing

Reviewed by Eileen Battersby

Colum McCann’s ‘Irish book’ is an emigrant’s take on Frederick Douglass and George Mitchell in Ireland

From its all-star cast and super-yacht backdrops, to the grit and grime of its underground market, Cannes is still the world’s most important film festival

Is it Southern Gothic? Americana? Or just another reason to love Matthew McConaughey? Jeff Nichols is back with the intruguing Mud

Lee Daniels’s follow-up to Precious is not subtle