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David Baddiel has revealed that, in his new documentary Jews Don’t Count, he apologises to former footballer Jason Lee for impersonating him in blackface in the Nineties.

Baddiel and fellow comic Frank Skinner once had a BBC show called Fantasy Football League, in which they ridiculed footballers.

Much of their mockery was directed at Lee, the Black Nottingham Forest player. Baddiel would portray Lee as dim-witted, with a pineapple on top of his head to imitate Lee’s hairstyle. Skinner would put on a strong Northern accent to portray Lee’s then-manager, Frank Clark.

At one point, Baddiel wore blackface when depicting Lee.

Speaking on Good Morning Britain on Thursday (17 November), Baddiel said: “I shamefully impersonated Jason Lee in blackface 25 years ago on Fantasy Football, and I felt that it was important, if I’m going to do a documentary about Jewish representation and minorities, that I should go...

More Dickens and even more Shakespeare, but also new novels from Toni Morrison, Hilary Mantel, Zadie Smith, plus exciting new voices – 2012's literary highlights

January

10 Charles Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood, starring Matthew Rhys and Tamzin Merchant, begins – and, unlike the book, ends – on BBC2.

13 Michael Morpurgo's much-loved children's novel War Horse, a long-running favourite at the National and on Broadway, gets the Hollywood treatment. A tearjerking saga about a young soldier and his horse – it was only a matter of time before it was Spielberged.

16 Ts Eliot prize. Despite withdrawals from the shortlist over objections to a hedge fund's sponsorship of the prize, the Eliot remains the UK's premier poetry award, and its eve-of-event reading is always a treat. This year's shortlist includes Daljit Nagra, Carol Ann Duffy and John Burnside.

20 Release of film of Coriolanus, an Orson Wellesian effort directed by and starring Ralph Fiennes,...

Peter Kosminsky, who made the controversial Israel-Palestine drama The Promise, is to make a film about Nelson Mandela's early life in South Africa

Peter Kosminsky, the British writer and director who made The Promise, a controversial Channel 4 drama serial about the history of Israel, is to risk fresh criticism with a feature film about Nelson Mandela's early life as a leader of the Anc's terrorist arm in South Africa.

The writer said that he would not shrink from depicting a violent part of Mandela's past that is often avoided in deference to the statesmanship of his later life. "The story I am trying to tell is of the early years of Mandela up until the imprisonment," he said. "He is rightly now seen as the greatest living human being, a man who delivered South Africa from the brink of a civil war, but he was once...

The panel of judges choosing this year's Man Booker International Prize have refused revered British author John Le Carre's request to have his name formally withdrawn from the literary competition.

The thriller writer, known for his novels The Tailor of Panama and The Constant Gardener, admits he is "enormously flattered" to be named on the shortlist for the top honour, but has no interest in awards.

He says, "I do not compete for literary prizes."

However, chief judge Rick Gekoski is refusing to bow to pressure from Le Carre, explaining the panel of judges, who are solely responsible for selecting the winner, are "great admirers" of the author's work and his name will remain on the list.

Philip Pullman is also among the 13 nominees for the prestigious prize, worth $96,000 (£60,000), which will be presented during a ceremony in London on 28 June.

Writer Howard Jacobson was named the winner of the 2010 award.

From Oscar favourite The King's Speech to ex-Booker winner Wolf Hall, art that retells events is now the mainstay of films and books. But the concentration on reality stops writers using the imagination for storytelling

Throughout their history, movies have been talked about in terms of dreaming: studios are "dream factories"; Hollywood is "the land of dreams". But scanning the list of contenders for this year's Oscars, such descriptions feels misplaced. The most striking thing about the leading films of the last 12 months is how many draw their inspiration from fact.

The leading Oscar contenders, The King's Speech and The Social Network, both offer fictionalised portraits of familiar but enigmatic public figures – a monarch and a monumentally successful entrepreneur. But it's also true of other hotly tipped releases such as The Fighter (about boxer Micky Ward) and 127 Hours (about rock climber Aron Ralston), as well as films still to hit...

A great year for women? Twelve months ago we predicted that it would be. Were we right?

This time 12 months ago we promised it was going to be the biggest year in feminism ever. So was it? Er, sort of. We weren't wrong about it being a celebratory year. But our predictions of the feminist events to watch in 2010 were a bit hit and miss. Where did we strike gold? The significance of the movie Precious, the story of an overweight, illiterate teenager in 80s Harlem, pregnant by her abusive father ("primarily female cast", "a must-see", we said). Come the Oscars, the film won six nominations and two awards. What did we overestimate? The impact of Drew Barrymore's directorial debut Whip It! ("a great film"). That turned out to be a bit of a howler. The film went right under the radar, more's the pity.

So what else did we get right?...

Jonathan Franzen's family epic, a new collection from Seamus Heaney, Philip Larkin's love letters, a memoir centred on tiny Japanese sculptures ... which books most excited our writers this year?

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

In Red Dust Road (Picador) Jackie Kay writes lucidly and honestly about being the adopted black daughter of white parents, about searching for her white birth mother and Nigerian birth father, and about the many layers of identity. She has a rare ability to portray sentiment with absolutely no sentimentality. Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (Random House) is a fresh and wonderful history of African-American migration. Chang-rae Lee's The Surrendered (Little, Brown) is a grave, beautiful novel about people who experienced the Korean war and the war's legacy. And David Remnick's The Bridge (Picador) is a thorough and well-written biography of Barack Obama. The many Americans who believe invented biographical details about Obama would do well to read it.

October 14, 2010: Tuesday night when Howard Jacobson won the Booker Prize for his comic novel ‘The Finkler Question’, he not only shocked some of the puritans of the literature world but was himself shocked. The 68year old columnist and writer has been long listed twice but failed to make it to the final stage as more than often a comic novel has not been given the status of high class literature.

But this time the odds were broken and in spite of not getting the unanimous vote of 5 for the win, Jacobson’s novel got 3 out of five to bag the £50,000. To many people’s delight this win of Jacobson reinforced the belief that Booker Prize overlooks the genres and finds the right book to bestow its award on.

Bookies too.

London, Oct 13 – Author and columnist Howard Jacobson has been honoured with Man Booker Prize for his comic novel ‘The Finkler Question’.

Jacobson, who beat contenders including double winner Peter Carey, received the 50,000 pounds prize at London’s Guildhall.

Chair of judges, Sir Andrew Motion, described the 68-year-old author’s book as “very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle”.

It explores Jewishness through the lives of three friends – two of them Jewish and one who wishes he was.

Accepting the award, Jacobson joked he had been writing.

Revered British author Howard Jacobson has been named the winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize.

The writer's comedy The Finkler Question was named the book of the year on Tuesday night in London.

Jacobson beat out five other writers for the top literary prize.

He was a surprise winner - Tom McCarthy was the clear favourite to land this year's Booker with his novel C.

Australian writer Peter Carey is on course to become a literary record breaker after landing what could be his third Booker Prize win.

The author's Parrot and Olivier in America is among the six contenders for the coveted book prize, which Carey has already won twice.

His latest novel is up against books by Tom McCarthy, Damon Galgut, Howard Jacobson and Andrea Levyfor.

The 2010 Booker Prize winner will be announced on 12 October at a prestigious ceremony in London.

Sherlock got rave reviews this week, and looks set to win awards. So why is it going out in the dog days of summer?

The overwhelmingly positive response to Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss's drama Sherlock, which started on BBC1 at the weekend, suggests that it will be a strong contender when it comes to this year's TV prizes. If the scripts, direction and Benedict Cumberbatch's portrayal of a modern Sherlock Holmes continue at the level set by the opener, my own view is that this show may go on to rank as a classic.

Yet many admiring critics have struck the same note of incredulity: why was a show of this quality being broadcast in the third week of July, when British television, run by deputy executives while the real ones holiday in Tuscany or Cape Cod, traditionally resorts to repeats and rejects?

It may be that...