1997 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1997.

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Events

• February 20 – Allen Ginsberg makes a final public appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam.[1] He continues to write through his final illness, his last poem being "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)" written on March 30.[2]
• May 27 – Shakespeare's Globe in London, a reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre, opens with a production of Shakespeare's Henry V.
• June 3 – The supposed climax of Max Beerbohm's 1916 short story "Enoch Soames" occurs at the old British Museum Reading Room in London.
• June 26 – J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is published in London by Bloomsbury Publishing, in an edition of 500 copies.
• July 13 – The release occurs in Ireland) of the film of Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel The Butcher Boy. The author plays Jimmy The Skite, the town drunk.
• October – The online literary magazine Jacket is founded.
• November 24 – The new British Library building in London designed by Colin St John Wilson opens to readers.
• December 30 – The memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is removed from the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, for portraying "white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people".[3]

Uncertain dates

• Tom Clancy signs a deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. giving him US $50 million for the world English rights to two new books. A second agreement pays another $25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal, and a third, with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with an ABC television miniseries for $22 million.
• Janet Dailey admits to plagiarism of the novels of the fellow American bestselling romance writer Nora Roberts.[4][5]

New books

Fiction

• Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman – So Vile a Sin
• Mitch Albom – Tuesdays With Morrie
• Martin Amis – Night Train
• Iain Banks – A Song of Stone
• John Banville – The Untouchable
• Hazel Barnes – The Story I Tell Myself
• Marie Bashkirtseff (died 1884) – I Am the Most Interesting Book of All (translation)
• Raymond Benson – Tomorrow Never Dies and Zero Minus Ten
• Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman – Vampire Science
• Roberto Bolaño – Last Evenings on Earth (Llamadas Telefonicas)
• Pascal Bruckner – Les Voleurs de beauté
• Simon Bucher-Jones – Ghost Devices
• Christopher Bulis – A Device of Death
• Tim Burton – The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories
• Candace Bushnell – Sex and the City
• Peter Carey – Jack Maggs
• Caleb Carr – The Angel of Darkness
• Agatha Christie (died 1976) – collected short stories
  • The Harlequin Tea Set
  • While the Light Lasts and Other Stories
• Mary Higgins Clark – Pretend You Don't See Her
• Daniel Clowes – Ghost World (graphic novel)
• Warwick Collins – Gents
• Bernard Cornwell
  • Sharpe's Tiger
  • Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur
• Patricia Cornwell
  • Hornet's Nest
  • Unnatural Exposure
• Paul Cornell – Oh No It Isn't!
• Jim Crace – Quarantine
• Robert Crais – Indigo Slam
• Ann C. Crispin
  • The Hutt Gambit
  • The Paradise Snare
• 'Misha Defonseca' – Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years (published as non-fiction)
• Don DeLillo – Underworld
• Anita Diamant – The Red Tent
• Terrance Dicks
  • The Eight Doctors
  • Mean Streets
• Fernanda Eberstadt – When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth
• Bernardine Evaristo – Lara
• Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
• Anthony Frewin – London Blues
• Anastasia Gosteva – Дочь самурая (The Samurai's Daughter)
• John Grisham – The Partner
• Barbara Hambly – Planet of Twilight
• Allison Hedge Coke – Dog Road Woman
• Matt Jones – Beyond the Sun
• Sebastian Junger – The Perfect Storm
• Winona LaDuke – Last Standing Woman
• Joe R. Lansdale – Bad Chili
• Paul Leonard – Genocide
• Ann-Marie MacDonald – Fall on Your Knees
• Bernard MacLaverty – Grace Notes
• Ian R. MacLeod – Voyages by Starlight
• Norman Mailer – The Gospel According to the Son
• Ian McEwan – Enduring Love
• David A. McIntee – The Dark Path
• Lawrence Miles
  • Alien Bodies
  • Down
• Mark Morris – The Bodysnatchers
• Toni Morrison – Paradise
• Jim Mortimore – Eternity Weeps
• Ryū Murakami (村上 龍) – In the Miso Soup (イン ザ・ミソスープ, English translation 2005)
• Courttia Newland – The Scholar
• Kate Orman – The Room with No Doors
• Hanne Ørstavik – Kjærlighet (Love)
• Lance Parkin – The Dying Days
• James Patterson – Cat and Mouse
• Cyril Pearl – Morisson of Peking
• John Peel – War of the Daleks
• Pepetela – A Gloriosa Família
• Marc Platt – Lungbarrow
• Terry Pratchett – Jingo
• Annie Proulx – "Brokeback Mountain" (short story)
• Thomas Pynchon – Mason & Dixon
• Kathy Reichs – Déjà Dead
• Nina Revoyr – The Necessary Hunger
• Justin Richards – Dragons' Wrath
• Mordecai Richler – Barney's Version
• Gareth Roberts – The Well-Mannered War
• Philip Roth – American Pastoral
• Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things
• Don Miguel Ruiz – The Four Agreements
• Gary Russell
  • Deadfall
  • Instruments of Darkness
• Will Self – Great Apes
• Carol Shields – Larry's Party
• Sidney Sheldon – The Best Laid Plans
• Michael Stackpole – The Bacta War
• Danielle Steel
  • The Ghost
  • The Ranch
  • Special Delivery
• Dave Stone
  • Burning Heart
  • Ship of Fools
• William Sutcliffe – Are You Experienced?
• Antonio Tabucchi – The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro (La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro)
• Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
• Zlatko Topčić – Nightmare
• Kurt Vonnegut – Timequake
• Lulu Wang – Het Lelietheater (The Lily Theatre)
• Niall Williams – Four Letters of Love
• Connie Willis – To Say Nothing of the Dog
• Timothy Zahn – Specter of the Past
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold – Donnerjack

Children and young people

• Lynne Reid Banks – Harry the Poisonous Centipede: A Story to Make You Squirm (first in the Harry the Poisonous Centipede trilogy)
• 'Asta Bowen – Wolf: A Journey Home
• Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒) – The Grass House (草房子)
• Sarah Ferguson – Budgie the Little Helicopter (first in an eponymous series of five books)
• Cornelia Funke – Dragon Rider
• Virginia Hamilton (with Barry Moser) – A Ring of Tricksters: Animal Tales from America, the West Indies, and Africa
• Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) – The Veil of Snows
• William Mayne – Lady Muck (illustrated by Jonathan Heale)
• Eloise Jarvis McGraw – The Moorchild
• Junko Morimoto – The Two Bullies
• Barbara Nichol (with Barry Moser) – Dippers
• Dav Pilkey – The Adventures of Captain Underpants
• Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife
• Rick Riordan – Big Red Tequila
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
• Ron Roy – The Absent Author (first in the A to Z Mysteries series of 26 books)
• Vivian Walsh – Olive, the Other Reindeer
• Jacqueline Wilson – Girls in Love

Drama

• Jon Fosse – Nightsongs
• Lee Hall – Spoonface Steinberg (radio monologue)
• Moisés Kaufman – Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
• Thomas Kilroy – The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde
• Conor McPherson – The Weir
• Patrick Marber – Closer
• Richard Nelson – Goodnight Children Everywhere
• Peter Whelan – The Herbal Bed

Poetry

Main article: 1997 in poetry

• Ted Hughes – Tales from Ovid

Non-fiction

• Dave Barry – Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs
• Jean-Dominique Bauby – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon)
• Cari Beauchamp – Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood
• Jan Bondeson – A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
• Bill Bryson – A Walk in the Woods
• D. K. Chakrabarti – Colonial Indology : sociopolitics of the ancient Indian past
• Iris Chang – The Rape of Nanking
• Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel
• Jenny Diski – Skating to Antarctica
• Michael Drosnin – The Bible Code
• Gerina Dunwich – A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination
• Geoff Dyer – Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence
• Timothy Ferris – The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report
• Benjamin Fondane (died 1944) – Le Voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager
• Stephen Fry – Moab Is My Washpot (autobiography)
• Charlotte Gray – Mrs. King
• Alan Guth – The Inflationary Universe
• Robert Hughes – American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America
• Jesse Lee Kercheval – Building Fiction
• Geneviève Lacambre – Gustave Moreau : Maître sorcier
• B. B. Lal – The Earliest civilization of South Asia: rise, maturity, and decline
• Peter Maas – Underboss
• Deborah Madison – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
• James McBride – The Color of Water
• Adele Morales – The Last Party: Scenes From My Life with Norman Mailer
• Ian Smith – The Great Betrayal
• Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont – Fashionable Nonsense
• Maria Todorova – Imagining the Balkans
• Kevin Warwick – March of the Machines

Deaths

• January 19 – James Dickey, American poet and novelist (born 1923)
• February 3 – Bohumil Hrabal, Czech novelist (born 1914)
• February 18 – Emily Hahn, American journalist and author (born 1905)
• April 5 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (liver cancer, born 1926)[1]
• May 9 – Rina Lasnier, Canadian poet (born 1915)
• May 23 – Alison Adburgham, English social historian and journalist (born 1912)
• June 8 – George Turner, Australian novelist and critic (born 1916)
• July 26 – Joseph Henry Reason, American librarian (born 1905)[6]
• August 2 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist (born 1914[7]
• August 16 – Gerard McLarnon, Irish actor and playwright (born 1915)
• August 27 – Johannes Edfelt, Swedish poet, translator and critic (born 1904)
• October 14 – Harold Robbins, American novelist (born 1916)
• October 16 – James A. Michener, American novelist and historian (born 1907)
• November 6 – Leon Forrest, African American novelist and essayist (cancer, born 1937)[8]
• November 30 – Kathy Acker, American novelist and poet (breast cancer, born 1947)[9]

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo
• Europe Theatre Prize: Robert Wilson
• Camões Prize: Pepetela

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Eva Sallis, Hiam
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, Subhuman Redneck Poems
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Anthony Lawrence, The Viewfinder
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Morgan Yasbincek, Night Reversing
• Miles Franklin Award: David Foster, The Glade Within the Grove

Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award: Rachel Rose
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Mordecai Richler, Barney's Version
• See 1997 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Anne Mullens, Timely Death[10]

France

• Prix Goncourt: Patrick Rambaud, La Bataille
• Prix Décembre: Lydie Salvayre, La Compagnie des spectres
• Prix Médicis International: T. Coraghessan Boyle, America
• Prix Médicis French: Les Sept Noms du peintre – Philippe Le Guillou

Spain

• Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Guillermo Cabrera Infante

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Tim Bowler, River Boy
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: R. F. Foster, William Butler Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 – The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914
• Cholmondeley Award: Alison Brackenbury, Gillian Clarke, Tony Curtis, Anne Stevenson
• Eric Gregory Award: Matthew Clegg, Sarah Corbett, Polly Clark, Tim Kendall, Graham Nelson, Matthew Welton
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Richard Blanco, City of a Hundred Fires
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Fred Chappell
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, John Ashbery
• Compton Crook Award: Richard Garfinkle, Celestial Matters
• Hugo Award: Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars
• Nebula Award: Vonda McIntyre, The Moon and the Sun
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: E. L. Konigsburg, The View from Saturday
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Steven Millhauser – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Lisel Mueller: Alive Together: New and Selected Poems
• Wallace Stevens Award: Anthony Hecht
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Josip Novakovich (fiction/nonfiction), Melanie Rae Thon

Nonfiction: Jo Ann Beard, Suketu Mehta (fiction/nonfiction), Ellen Meloy

Plays: Erik Ehn

Poetry: Connie Deanovich, Forrest Gander, Jody Gladding, Mark Turpin

Elsewhere

• International Dublin Literary Award: Javier Marías, A Heart So White
• Premio Nadal: Carlos Cañeque, Quién

Notes

1. Hampton, Wilborn (April 6, 1997). "Allen Ginsberg, Master Poet Of Beat Generation, Dies at 70". New York Times. Archived from the original on March 11, 2008. Retrieved April 14, 2008.
2. Ginsberg, Allen. Collected Poems 1947–1997. pp. 1160–61.
3. "Harry Potter, 'Huckleberry Finn' among controversial". Banned books. CNN. Archived from the original on 2004-08-05.
4. Wilson, Jeff (1997-07-30). "Romance novelist Janet Dailey apologizes for plagiarism". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
5. Standora, Leo (1997-08-27). "Romance Writer Janet Dailey Sued". New York Daily News. Archived from the original on 2009-08-01. Retrieved 2008-11-18.
6. Owens, Irene (January 2003). "Reason, Joseph Henry". In Donald G. Davis (ed.). Dictionary of American Library Biography: Second supplement. Libraries Unlimited. pp. 182–186. ISBN 978-1-56308-868-1.
7. 2003 Penguin Modern Classics edition of Junky.
8. Onishi, Norimitsu. "Leon Forrest, 60, a Novelist Who Explored Black History", The New York Times, November 10, 1997.
9. Kathy Acker and Transnationalism, ed. Polina Mackay and Kathryn Nicol (Cambridge Scholars, 2009)
10. Faculty of Arts, 1997, Edna Staebler Award Archived 2014-06-06 at Archive-It, Wilfrid Laurier University, Previous winners, Anne Mullens, Retrieved 11/17/2012