Elif Shafak

After a recent panel on “politics and literature”, a young man in the audience stood up and said, “Can British authors please shut up about Brexit?” If

Feminists from Turkey are especially alert to what is happening in Afghanistan. For us, the rise of fundamentalism is an existential threat that is never far away.

Paradoxically, amid so much suffering and hurt, grief has become less visible than ever.

Manifesto reminds us of the importance of not losing hope.

For the author bell hooks, who has died aged 69, radical politics and gentleness of spirit went hand in hand.

We know that populist dictators are emboldened by each other’s atrocities, so how many more disappearances will it take before China crosses the West’s “red line”?

An unexpected link to a schoolgirl killed in Afghanistan is a reminder that we are all citizens of the world.

I look out the plane window at New York covered in white. I was not expecting the snow. I have neither the right shoes nor the proper coat. This happens to me often. An immigrant, a self-imposed exile

Published between the wars, Woolf’s essay Three Guineas still has lessons for today’s conflict-ravaged world.

Also this week: Yodelling for Kafka and how water connects us all.