Syndicat de la Librairie Française accused online retailer of trying to ‘flood the market with fake AI-generated books’

Amazon has withdrawn from the Paris book festival after a boycott by France’s booksellers’ association prompted a row over the company’s sponsorship of the event.

The festival, due to take place from 17 to 19 April, will now go ahead without the backing of the US retail company, after a mutual decision by organisers and Amazon to end their partnership.

Author of more than 30 novels, including Fado Alexandrino and The Inquisitors’ Manual, was widely seen as one of the most important voices in modern Portuguese literature

• António Lobo Antunes’s exhilarating novels forced Portugal to confront its darkest moments

António Lobo Antunes, the Portuguese novelist whose dark, polyphonic fiction confronted the traumas of dictatorship, war and Portuguese society, has died aged 83.

Widely regarded as one of the most important Portuguese writers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, he produced more than 30 novels that reshaped Portuguese writing and made him a perennial contender for the Nobel prize for literature. He received numerous honours, including the Camões prize, the most prestigious award in the Portuguese language, and several major European literary prizes. His death was confirmed by the publisher Dom Quixote.

Sixteen novels are in contention for the £30,000 award, now in its 31st year, with settings ranging from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata

Katie Kitamura, Susan Choi, Kit de Waal and Lily King are among the authors longlisted for this year’s Women’s prize for fiction.

Awarded annually and now in its 31st year, the prize comes with £30,000, and is one of the most prominent accolades for women’s writing in the English language. The 16-strong list features a selection of novels that range in setting from climate-ravaged islands to a near-future Kolkata, and from 1970s Birmingham to East Berlin on the brink of reunification.

To browse all books in the Women’s prize for fiction 2026 longlist, visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.