Playwright and politician: Havel's willingness to serve was truly heroic At one end of the scale there is Kim Jong-il, the model dictator, at the other Christopher Hitchens, model exponent of free...

Four new books demonstrate European literature’s new schism, says Julian Evans. Since 1989, the centre of gravity has moved east, to the poor lands of the former Soviet domain

John le Carré’s righteous anger ignites his fast-paced new novel, but it can’t make up for a cast of unconvincing characters

David Mitchell’s fifth book, set in 18th-century Japan, cements his reputation as one of the finest English novelists writing today

Will the January presidential elections see Ukraine swing towards the east or the west?

The Nobel winner of 2006 has defied the prize’s curse to write a rich novel that is both a tragic love story and an epic poem, nestled in its setting of Istanbul

Sebastian Faulks’s new novel is ambitious, entertaining and delightfully vicious in its assault on literary hacks. If only he could make us care just a little more

No one melds history, drama and ideas with more panache than AS Byatt. So it's a shame that her latest novel leaves readers so little to do other than admire

Racing along a bumpy Ukrainian highway at over 200km in my friend Sasha's custom-modified Mercedes, I entered eastern Europe's bravest new world

Andrew O'Hagan's fictional account of a wayward and dysfunctional priest is most striking for its discussion of the importance, and trap, of idealism