LETTERS

Danny Bird You open your book by recounting a chance visit to an old mosque in Cyprus. What was so significant about that moment? Tharik Hussain Nothing changed for me on the day itself, because I kne

How and why women fall through history’s gaps

A love-hate relationship recalled by France’s ‘greatest living writer’

It began with an election and ended just over 300 years later in a hail of bullets. Rulers of Russia from 1613 to 1917, the dynasty included such famed figures as Peter the Great – the westward-lookin

‘I felt that I should like to kiss the hands that had awakened a new world of music for me.’ The year was 1888, the occasion was the Paris debut of a 27-year-old pianist named Ignacy Jan Paderewski. A