Writing in the Times shortly after the publication of Marilynne Robinson’s third novel in 2008, Brian Appleyard opined: “I’m not saying you’re actually dead if you haven’t read Marilynne Robinson, but I honestly couldn’t say you’re fully alive.” Interview by Kay Parris

On a grey but close day, with no windows open, the low-ceilinged lobby outside Robert Beckford’s office at Goldsmith’s College in London – at the top of what feels like a high-rise portacabin – can leave one feeling a little claustrophic. The lift is small and tinny, the main reception for the college is more like a school caretaker’s office. Things are on the scruffy side, which works for Goldsmith’s College, Beckford says as he ushers us into his only marginally more airy quarters.

UNAIDS executive director Dr Peter Piot believes trade unions will have a critical role to play in the global response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic for the next 25 years and beyond, as Kay Parris reports

One of Britain's best known and at times most controversial broadcasters, John Humphrys, shares his reflections on two big subjects. Interview by Kay Parris

Esther Mombo is one of Africa’s foremost theologians and a formidable campaigner for gender equality. Interview by Kay Parris

Anjum Anwar is sitting at the wheel of her car, cursing the mid-morning traffic. Our interview at a local hotel has overrun and we are late for a seminar she has arranged for some students at Blackburn College – to be led by the prominent liberal Muslim academic Dr Irfan Al-Alawi.

In 1995, Henry Olonga became the first black cricketer ever to play for Zimbabwe and, at 18, the youngest to do so. But, while these feats have secured him a place in world sporting history, he is better known for an event on the pitch that had little to do with his notoriously unpredictable fast-bowling action.