Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Powers are among 13 authors competing for the prestigious Booker literary prize, news wires reported.

If the world is not described in words any more, it will continue to exist, but will continue its life in elementary unambiguity and mediocrity. Everything will mean only itself, and human imagination will turn into a sum of instincts, says writer Vladimir Zarev in an interview for BTA.

The Native American writer Louise Erdrich has won the Pulitzer Prize for The Night Watchman, a powerful novel inspired by the life of her maternal grandfather, whose reservation community was threatened in the 1950s by a new “emancipation” bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress.

French author David Diop has won the International Booker Prize for his novel At Night All Blood is Black. The winner was announced by the chair of the judges, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, during a virtual ceremony streamed across the awards' Facebook page and YouTube channel from Coventry Cathedral in the UK.

On a personal level, for someone to leave the past behind, they need to forgive and to be forgiven. From the global perspective of mankind, as a collective, we move on without forgiveness, says Georgi Bardarov, one of the laureates of this year's European Union Prize for Literature, in an interview to EUROPOST.

Bulgarian writer Georgi Bardarov's novel Absolvo Te, which means “forgiveness of all sins”, is among the winners of the European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL). The novel was published in 2020. It intertwines the threads of several conflicts that still smoulder today. The main character, a Holocaust survivor, is also among the victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is especially topical today due to the increased tensions in the Gaza Strip.

Chinese writer Can Xue and Kenyan author Ngugi wa Thiong’o, both long-favoured contenders for the Nobel Prize for literature, are among nominees for the International Booker Prize for fiction. Can Xue’s “I Live in the Slums” and Ngugi’s “The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi” are among 13 books on the longlist for the 50,000 pound prize.

Italy marks Dante Day on Thursday on the 700th anniversary of the Divine Comedy author's death in Ravenna. The 'Supreme Poet' will be celebrated across the country with the highest-profile event being a televised reading of Canto XXV of the Paradiso by comic actor, director and Dante buff Roberto Benigni at the presidential Quirinal Palace at 19:10 in the presence of President Sergio Mattarella and Culture Minister Dario Franceschini, ANSA reported.

“Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” author John le Carre, who cast flawed spies on to the bleak chessboard of Cold War rivalry, has died aged 89.

French author Hervé Le Tellier has been awarded on Monday the Goncourt Prize for his novel L'Anomalie (The Anomaly), news wires reported. France's top literary honour was attributed by videolink owing to the coronavirus pandemic.