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When I first saw the news that Caffè Nero is establishing a new set of writing prizes, I was thrilled. Since the Costa book awards came to an untimely end last year, it's been obvious there is a gap that needs filling, a mechanism to celebrate titles which have the potential to reach a bigger than expected audience.  Read more

The author of Babel and The Poppy War, Rebecca F Kuang, has said she finds the idea that authors should only write about characters of their own race "deeply frustrating and pretty illogical".

The list of past guest speakers at Crit, the writing workshop that author Tony Tulathimutte runs out of his Brooklyn apartment, reads like a veritable who's who of 21st-century literary greats. Jonathan Franzen, Hua Hsu and Carmen Maria Machado have all popped by as guests at the eight-week course.  Read more

It's almost a cliché that spy novels should be dark, gripping, ambiguous. Espionage, after all, is the shadowy business of stealing high-stakes secrets, of manipulation, deception, and betrayal. But after six years of spying for the CIA-then writing my first spy novel-I found the profession was defined by something more fundamental: the enduring weight of unanswered questions.