DWL Lit Bites is DWL Blog’s weekly roundup of literary news. Send us your suggestions on Facebook, tweet at us @desi_writers or leave a comment!

Hello readers! We have some literary links from around the interwebs to kickstart your weekend reading.

1. The British novelist Doris Lessing was born on Oct 22, 1919, in Persia. Author of some of the best science fiction and feminist novels (Canopus in Argos, The Golden Notebook), she won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2007 after being told many times that she will not win. We revisit Alexandra Schwartz’s brief profile of the writer for The New Yorker “On Doris Lessing and Not Saying Thank You.”

2. It seems like we cannot stop retelling and readapting the Bard. This October saw the release of Macbeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. But why does Shakespeare live on in our cultural consciousness? Stefanie Peters at The Millions has some answers.

3. The jury of the 2016 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature has announced an 11-book longlist for the annual award. Read our coverage of the 2016 DSC Prize.

4. The Jaipur Literature Festival has opened its annual writing competition. The contest’s 10 winners will get the chance to attend the festival and report on its activities for the festival’s official blog.

5. Meanwhile, writers in India have continued their protest against “rising intolerance” in the country. Here’s the latest on the protests.