The determinedly private JM Coetzee is one of the world’s great writers. Billy O’Callaghan reports on a biography that unwraps the enigma

Hilary Mantel said she was left “weak at the knees” after becoming the first British writer to win the Man Booker Prize for Fiction twice after her novel Bring up the Bodies was named the best book of the year.

The work of an Irish author has been placed among eight of the world’s top novels in line for an international award.