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Poet, acclaimed for her performance at Joe Biden’s inauguration, tweeted ‘this is the reality of black girls’

Amanda Gorman, the poet who won acclaim for her performance at Joe Biden’s inauguration, has told of being followed home and accosted by a security guard who allegedly claimed she looked suspicious.

She said the incident, on Friday night, was emblematic of “the reality of black girls” in the US, in which “one day you’re called an icon” but the next day considered a threat.

A security guard tailed me on my walk home tonight. He demanded if I lived there because “you look suspicious.” I showed my keys & buzzed myself into my building. He left, no apology. This is the reality of black girls: One day you’re called an icon, the next day, a threat. https://t.co/MmANtQqpBs

Exclusive: in Everything inhabitable, published in the Guardian, the Dutch writer responds to controversy over the decision to appoint a white translator to the black poet’s book

The International Booker winner Marieke Lucas Rijneveld has written a poem responding to the controversy that broke out after they withdrew from the job of translating Amanda Gorman’s poetry into Dutch, writing that they took the decision because they were “able to grasp when it / isn’t your place”.

Related: Everything inhabitable: a poem by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld

The pair will contribute original music for adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger bestseller expected on stage by early next year

With UK venues closed because of the pandemic, theatregoers would love to travel forward in time to see a new show. One of the new musicals waiting for them will be The Time Traveller’s Wife, an adaptation of Audrey Niffenegger’s bestselling novel, with original music and lyrics by Dave Stewart and Joss Stone. It is set to open in the UK at the end of this year or in early 2022.

Stewart and Stone, who collaborated on the SuperHeavy album in 2011 and other recordings, have created the songs for the romance between Clare, an artist, and Henry, whose genetic disorder sends him hurtling into his past and future. In a statement, the songwriters said the experience had thrown them “into an eddy of emotive melodies and heart-wrenching lyrics to go with the push and pull of this unusual love story. We all time-travel in our relationships and in our lives in general, but to write something that people will see and hear happening live on stage is thrilling to imagine.”

Titles scoop top spots on Amazon days after withdrawal of six books, while secondhand copies sell for inflated prices

US customers have flocked to buy copies of Dr Seuss titles after six of the children’s author’s books were withdrawn because of racist portrayals of people of colour.

Dr Seuss Enterprises, which preserves the late Theodor Seuss Geisel’s legacy, announced on Tuesday – the author’s birthday – that after working with a panel of experts to review Seuss’s books, it had concluded that the six titles portrayed people in ways that were “hurtful and wrong”.

In The Man of To-morrow’s Lament, rejected by the New Yorker in 1942, the Lolita author imagines the superhero mourning his inability to have children with Lois Lane

A lost poem by Vladimir Nabokov, written from the perspective of Superman as he laments the impossibility of having children with Lois Lane, has been published for the first time.

The Man of To-morrow’s Lament appears in this week’s Times Literary Supplement. In it, Nabokov, whose son loved the Superman comics, writes in the voice of the Man of Steel. He imagines the hero walking through a city park with Lois, forced to wear his glasses because “otherwise, / when I caress her with my super-eyes, / her lungs and liver are too plainly seen / throbbing”.

Twelve works have been longlisted for the $50,000 literary prize for Australian women and non-binary writers

A slew of debut works feature among the finalists in the 2021 Stella prize.

The longlist for the annual literary award for Australian female and non-binary writers was announced on Thursday evening.

Related: Does writing books still matter in an era of environmental catastrophe?

Fathoms: the World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs (Scribe Publications)

Revenge: Murder in Three Parts by S L Lim (Transit Lounge)

The Animals in That Country by Laura Jean McKay (Scribe Publications)

Witness by Louise Milligan (Hachette Australia)

Metal Fish, Falling Snow by Cath Moore (Text Publishing)

The Wandering by Intan Paramaditha (Penguin Random House)

Stone Sky Gold Mountain by Mirandi Riwoe (University of Queensland Press)

Blueberries by Ellena Savage (Text Publishing)

Song of the Crocodile by Nardi Simpson (Hachette Australia)

Smart Ovens for Lonely People by Elizabeth Tan (Brio Books)

A Lonely Girl is a Dangerous Thing by Jessie Tu (Allen & Unwin)

The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld (Penguin Random House)

Books That Make You LOL hosted by rapper Kenny Baraka ‘liked’ by 112,000 young people

Organisers are predicting that Thursday’s World Book Day will be the biggest ever after a pre-event on Wednesday saw a record 20,000 children taking part online – more than 20 times more young people than attended a single event in previous years.

Books That Make You LOL – which is still available to watch on demand and was hosted by the south London rapper and lyricist Kenny Baraka – was “liked” by 112,690 young people who were unable to engage in World Book Day’s traditional, annual attempt to spark children’s interest in reading by encouraging them to dress up in the costumes of their favourite book characters at school.

The 90-year-old Irish writer will be named commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres on Sunday

Edna O’Brien is to receive France’s highest cultural distinction, and be named commander of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres this week.

Related: Edna O’Brien on turning 90: ‘I can’t pretend that I haven’t made mistakes’

‘Virtual unfolding’ is hailed a breakthrough in the study of historic documents as unopened letter from 1697 is read for the first time using X-ray technology

In a world first for the study of historic documents, an unopened letter written in 1697 has been read by researchers without breaking the seal.

The letter, dated 31 July 1697 and sent from French merchant Jacques Sennacques in Lille to his cousin Pierre Le Pers in The Hague, had been closed using “letterlocking”, a process in which the letter is folded to become its own envelope, in effect locking it to keep it private. It is part of a collection of some 2,600 undelivered letters sent from all over Europe to The Hague between 1689 and 1706, 600 of which have never been opened.

Related: Undelivered letters shed light on 17th-century society