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This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1997.

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Events

  • February 20 – Allen Ginsberg makes a final public appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam.
  • 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.
  • September 1 – The Adventures of Captain Underpants, the first in Dav Pilkey's series of children's novels, is published by Scholastic in the United States.
  • 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".

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.

New books

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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
  • 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
  • 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
  • Melissa Lucashenko – Steam Pigs
  • 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
  • Down
  • Mark Morris – The Bodysnatchers
  • Toni Morrison – Paradise
  • Jim Mortimore – Eternity Weeps
  • Herta Müller – The Appointment
  • 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)
  • Kaoru Takamura – ' (book publication completed)
  • 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

  • Lloyd Alexander – The Iron Ring
  • 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
  • Nancy Butts - The Door in the Lake
  • Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒) – The Grass House (草房子)
  • Sarah Ferguson – Budgie the Little Helicopter (first in an eponymous series of 5 books)
  • Mem Fox – Whoever You Are
  • 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
  • Mary Pope Osborne (with Ned Bittinger) – Rocking Horse Christmas
  • Dav Pilkey – The Adventures of Captain Underpants (first in the Captain Underpants series of 12 books)
  • Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife
  • Rick Riordan – Big Red Tequila
  • J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (first book in the Harry Potter series)
  • Ron Roy – The Absent Author (first in the A to Z Mysteries series of 26 books)
  • Simms Taback – There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly
  • 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

  • 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
  • Betty Kobayashi Issenman – Sinews of Survival
  • Geneviève Lacambre – Gustave Moreau : Maître sorcier
  • B. B. Lal – The Earliest civilization of South Asia: rise, maturity, and decline
  • Peter Maas – Underboss
  • Deborah Madison &ndash; Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
  • James McBride – The Color of Water
  • Adele Morales – The Last Party: Scenes From My Life with Norman Mailer
  • Penguin Random House – Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
  • E. Wayne Ross – The Social Studies Curriculum
  • Ian Smith – The Great Betrayal
  • Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont – Fashionable Nonsense
  • Maria Todorova – Imagining the Balkans
  • Larry Trask – The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
  • Kevin Warwick – March of the Machines
  • Thierry Zéphir – Khmer: The Lost Empire of Cambodia

Births

  • February 12 – Alexander Nikolov, Bulgarian poet
  • June 22 – Aqiil Gopee, Mauritian writer and poet
  • November 28 – Franz Mherryon Robles, Filipino novelist and aphorist

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)
  • March 21 - Wilbert Awdry, British Anglican reverend and author (born 1911)
  • April 5 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (liver cancer, born 1926)
  • 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)
  • June 11 – Susanna Roth, Swiss bohemist and literary translator (born 1950)
  • July 26 – Joseph Henry Reason, American librarian (born 1905)
  • August 2 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist (born 1914
  • 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)
  • November 30 – Kathy Acker, American novelist and poet (breast cancer, born 1947)
  • December 14 – Owen Barfield, British philosopher, author and poet (born 1898)

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

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

  • Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Yaşar Kemal
  • International Dublin Literary Award: Javier Marías, A Heart So White
  • Premio Nadal: Carlos Cañeque, Quién

Notes

References

  • Popular Books of 1997 at Goodreads