Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist

Christine de Pizan was born in Italy but most of her life was spent in Paris, where her father was astrologer to the King of France. After her husband died she was left alone to bring up her three children. Christine's most famous work is The Book of the City of Ladies, and histo ...  Show more

After a childhood in care in Surrey, Alex Wheatle was moved to a hostel in Brixton aged fourteen. Later he was involved in the riots and given a prison sentence, events which were covered in one of the Small Axe anthology of films by Steve McQueen. But it is Wheatle's writing car ...  Show more

This month, to kick off a mini-season to celebrate a very special centenary World Book Club talks, for a second time, to the Nobel Prize-winning giant of world literature, Professor Wole Soyinka, about one hundred years of the writers’ organisation English PEN. PEN is the influen ...  Show more

Written by iconic Egyptian novelist Ihsan Abdel Kouddous, this classic of love, desire, and family breakdown smashed through taboos when first published in Arabic and continues to captivate audiences today It is 1950s Cairo and 16-year-old Amina is engaged to a much older man. De ...  Show more

David Mitchell has published eight novels, two of which – number9dream and Cloud Atlas – have been shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has also translated two books on autism from Japanese, working with his Japanese wife: their son is on the autistic spectrum. While his work als ...  Show more

Harriett Gilbert talks to acclaimed Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswany about his bestselling novel The Yacoubian Building. It was the Arab world’s number-one bestseller for five years running after it was published in 2002. The Yacoubian Building interweaves the stories of a group of ...  Show more