From the architecture of the gene to the oral histories of men and women in the former USSR, this year’s best books reveal what it is to be human

Family, friendship and identity—one of English fiction’s most celebrated young writers returns to familiar turf

A debut novelist from Sri Lanka returns to war-torn Jaffna in search of questions history has not resolved

Mewar Ramayana, the finest surviving illustrated manuscript

With three men and three women on the list, and with ages ranging from 35 (Ottessa Moshfegh) to 57 (Deborah Levy) the Man Booker shortlist appears to be unusually balanced.

The sacred feminine according to Chetan Bhagat

She is an alleged rape victim, thirteen years old and seven-month pregnant. In an Uttar Pradesh village, Nandini Nair meets the girl and her family caught between shame, stigma and injustice

The chronicler of metropolises returns to fiction to tell the story of memory and displacement

These stories reveal the fragility of the mind and the capacity of the heart

#ReadytoWait is quite simply in opposition to #RightobeaWoman

CELESTIAL HEROISM IS a bestseller, unless it is badly made. In it merges great survivor dramas and the romance of breaching the boundaries of human…