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Elizabeth Day talks to Booker-longlisted Anuk Arudpragasam about A Passage North. His second novel, it follows a young Sri Lankan man's journey back home and to the funeral of his grandmother's carer. Arudpragasam discusses writing a meditative reflection on loss, trauma and yearning in a country where the reverberations of painful civil war remain unavoidable.

Is the publishing industry unhealthily obsessed with youth? Two debut writers who buck the trend, Stephen Walsh and Rosanna Amaka, discuss the benefits to being published later in life, as well as their struggles to have their dreams realised.

And Yassine Belkacemi choses this month's Editor's Pick.

Book List – Sunday 25 July and Thursday 29 July

A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
A Brief Marriage by Anuk Arudpragasam
The Book of Echoes by Rosanna Amaka
Shine/Variance by Stephen Walsh
Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
Intimacies by Katie Kitamura
A Separation by Katie Kitamura

Photo copyright: Ruvin De Silva