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Former British politician and bestselling novelist Jeffrey Archer has died aged 86. We look back at a varied and tumultuous career

Only 150 of 2,189 titles published in UK for young children last year focused on minority ethnic, disabled or neurodivergent characters

The six stories on the shortlist for the 10th year of the writing award run by 4th Estate and the Guardian and open to unpublished writers of colour are ‘affecting in new and surprising ways’, said judge and author Gurnaik Johal

The Royal Shakespeare Company announces ambitious adaptations of novels in season that includes Elizabeth Debicki as Richard II and Damien Molony as Coriolanus

The acclaimed American journalist, who won the nonfiction prize in 2021, is shortlisted alongside Andrea Wulf and Matthew Sweet

Six writers are in contention for the £10,000 books prize, which celebrates fiction that ‘breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form’

The Edinburgh-based writer takes £15,000 prize for Ditto, a ‘beautifully told’ story about domestic abuse in a small Australian town

• Read an extract from Ditto below

City of LA faces free speech suit after public library officials scrapped two writers’ Read Palestine Week book talks

Thélyson Orélien had been in the running to win a top literary prize before the AI claim emerged on social media