In the run-up to the announcement of the Costa book of the year, we track two of the contenders across continents.
We go to Delhi to ask Kishwar Desai why she decided to make "gendercide" – the killing of girl babies – the subject of her first novel, Witness the Night.
We also travel to southern Africa to investigate the background to Jason Wallace's boarding-school novel for young adults, Out of Shadows. Wallace's tale is set in Zimbabwe, but South Africans have also embraced the tradition, as two South African writers tell us – including John Van de Ruit, whose Spud books have had international success and have just made their South African film debut.
And we hear from the Nigerian Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka why, after decades on the front lines of his country's political battles, he has decided to retire from public life.
Reading list:
Witness the Night by Kishwar Desai (Beautiful Books)
Out of Shadows by Jason Wallace (Andersen)
Spud, by John Van de Ruit (Puffin)
You Must Set Forth at Dawn: a Memoir by Wole Soyinka (Methuen)
