‘Cancel culture? We should stop it. End of story’: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on backlash, writer’s block – and her new baby twins

It’s been 11 years since she published a novel. In that time, the author has lost both parents, seen Trump become president twice – and finally returned to fiction after a bruising reaction to her comments on gender

The best recent crime and thrillers – review roundup

The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer; The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths; Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito; The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha; The Weekenders by David F Ross

Somebody Down There Likes Me by Robert Lukins review – a dispiriting imitation of Succession

Yet another trendy tale of feckless, all-American cruelty, following a family of late-capitalist tropes whose empire is about to fall

Dengue Boy by Michel Nieva review – revenge of the giant humanoid mosquito

A tale of radioactive mutation and bloodlust takes flight in the Argentinian author’s wild anti-capitalist satire

A House for Miss Pauline by Diana McCaulay review – family secrets in Jamaica

This big-hearted tale sees a 99-year-old woman reckoning with the inheritance of the past

The South by Tash Aw review – an intimate epic begins

Two boys on the brink of adulthood in 1990s Malaysia, in the opening volume of a Proustian quartet

John Lithgow set to play Dumbledore in Harry Potter TV series – reports

Actor reportedly in final negotiations to follow up performance in Oscar-nominated hit Conclave with key role in much-anticipated HBO series

Tom Robbins obituary

Novelist whose biggest seller was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, which Thomas Pynchon hoped would change the ‘brainscape of America’

Perspectives by Laurent Binet review – a dazzling Renaissance romp

The HHhH author’s entertaining whodunnit is stuffed with real-life artists behaving badly

Femgore: why romcoms are out in women’s fiction – and cannibalism is in

Forget romance and romantasy. An explosive new genre explores the brutality and body horror women experience

In the 1600s, a Yolŋu girl was kidnapped from an Australian beach. Centuries later her story is a novel

Based on a story from pre-colonial Australia, A Piece of Red Cloth is a pioneering, ‘real collaboration’ between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal storytellers

Empty Wigs by Jonathan Meades review – a black museum of savage stories

Encompassing eugenics, euthanasia and terrorism, this dark, sprawling novel by a man of many talents is not for the easily offended

We Do Not Part by Han Kang review – a harrowing journey into South Korea’s bloody history

The Nobel prize-winner’s strange and unsettling new novel takes its protagonist on a mission that ends up confronting terrible pre-war violence

Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof review – fire and energy in a new septology

This intense tale of lives connected to the Scandinavian Star ferry disaster in 1990 is hardly conventional, but undoubtedly exciting

Don’t Make Me Laugh by Julia Raeside review – did you hear the one about the toxic standup?

Set in the London comedy world, this provocative and funny debut novel explores the grey areas of coercion and intimacy