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How Chaucer’s medieval Wife of Bath continues to make her voice heard
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Writing from lived experience often has legitimacy, but autofiction has fictional elements that trouble the autobiographical pact.
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Bringing colour and emotional depth, Baunbach’s adaptation is a good companion to DeLillo’s searing novel.
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Summer reading is a byword for light escapism – but it can mean anything, from catching up on the classics to a new romance novel. Julian Novitz travels to the 19th century to trace its evolution.
A coffin made to resemble a mermaid at a Ga funeral. The Ga people live along the southeast coast of Ghana.
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These literary works ask readers to rethink the histories of these half-human sea creatures and their role in society today.
‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ didn’t begin life as a song, but being set to music helped it find fame.
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‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ is now a treasured Christmas classic, but it didn’t start life that way – not in the UK, at least.
Emily Brontë as portrayed by Emma Mackey in Emily, (2022).
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An expert in the lives and works Brontës argues that it’s time for a radical change in the way we think about Emily Brontë’s death.
Making a book takes lots of brainstorming and writing, but there are many steps to printing it, too.
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It takes a lot of steps – and help from other people – to make a physical book you can hold in your hands.
An illustration from Ducks.
Jonathan Cape
Creative literature has a unique role to play in fighting the climate crisis, as these three graphic novels prove.
The film’s Lady Chatterley and her Mellors have an easier path to love than their literary counterparts.
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D.H. Lawrence’s book is a seething commentary on class, exposing his fears for Britain’s future. But the film is a romantic period drama.
NoViolet Bulawayo, author of Glory.
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Glory is a story about Zimbabwe’s violent past told through animals.
Sophie Davidson
Our tales of the natural world are disappearing and we shouldn’t let them.
Pupils in Kenya hold prayers for victims of a 2013 terror attack in Nairobi.
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Kenyan families with access to mass media are significantly more afraid of terrorism than those without access.
Books have shaped societies throughout the ages.
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Books are one of the oldest forms of communication ‘technology,’ a scholar writes, and understanding how they’ve evolved over time provides insights into their role in society.
Literary devices abound in Taylor Swift’s body of work.
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Swift, like all writers, draws from her literary forebears to craft new works.
Marcel Proust on a French postage stamp.
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From electricity to X-rays, the Doppler Effect and even quantum theory, Proust’s writing is littered with physics references.
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The French writer has won the Nobel for literature for her ascetic approach to writing and fearlessness in covering the personal and taboo.
Charlie Hunnam as Gregory David Roberts in the forthcoming TV adaptation of the 2003 novel.
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Gregory David Roberts’ best-selling 2003 novel has been adapted for TV. But its depiction of India and Indians brims with Orientalist, white saviour stereotypes.
Ada Limón is the 24th U.S. poet laureate.
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Ada Limón is the first woman of Mexican ancestry to be named U.S. poet laureate. Through her understanding of social media and the power of connection, she strives to make poetry accessible to everyone.
Kanye West provoked criticism recently when he compared reading to eating Brussels sprouts.
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A hip-hop artist and scholar says that while rap stresses the oral tradition, the music is also rife with references to a rich range of literature that spans the globe.