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best for FICTION

Crystal Pite and Simon McBurney tackle the ecological crisis

SELINA positioned the six-week-old baby in the soft, knitted cocoon she used for the purpose. She smiled at the little boy, having a photo shoot with his proud parents. As a younger woman she’d relish

ONE OF THE MOST GRIMLY FUNNY POEMS OF the past century is Philip Larkin’s “This Be the Verse,” with its opening salvo about how our parents invariably mess us up. Larkin used a saltier word for “mess,

IRIS walked slowly to the front door of her Victorian villa in Fairley, a sleepy Sussex village. It had begun, she fumed silently – the “invasion” of her home. Of course, she’d been expecting it. Her

MICHELE RUSPOLI felt a little less agitated, now that he was inside the library, but all around was evidence of the flood. Books had been laid out haphazardly on pieces of matting, all leather-bound,