Knowledge of Latin may be in decline, but novels, films and documentaries about the Romans have never been more popular. We are still dimly, unconsciously, aware that our culture grew out of classical civilisation

Adrift at sea, submerged in olive oil, all my bodily needs are satisfied, and I can dream

Martin Amis's new novel is brilliant and insightful, but offers little news to those versed in the 20th century's first-hand accounts of atrocity

A child soldier leads Father Angelo to speak with the devil in the African bush

The Russian writer's novel "Life and Fate"—often compared with "War and Peace"—was first published in English in the mid-1980s. But only now is interest taking off among a wider public

John Updike has tried and largely failed to convey the interior life of an Arab-American terrorist. Still, it is always a pleasure to watch a master at work

An interview with the winner of the inaugural National Short Story prize

Born into the life of a stray, Pestrushka finds herself being trained for spaceflight

Sol can either go to the dentist, or play poker with an old friend

By updating her fictional city, Jan Morris offers a fable of sterile modernisation, a lament for lost culture and a farewell to the purpose of travel

She pricked the pieties of Leavisite critics and feminists alike, but her fairy tales have outlived them all. They contain a black thread tying love to violence

A story of travellers lost in the wilderness ties me to my father near the end