1994 in literature

Events

November 26 – The Ministry of Culture and Art in Poland orders exhumation of the presumed grave of absurdist painter, playwright and novelist Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (suicide 1939) in Zakopane. Genetic tests on the remaining bones prove that the body belongs to an unknown woman.

December 1 – The National and University Library of Iceland (Landsbókasafn Íslands – Háskólabókasafn) is established in Reykjavík by merger of the former national library, Landsbókasafn Íslands (established 1818) and the university library (1940).

Penguin Books offer Peter James' novel Host on two floppy disks as "the world's first electronic novel".

The first Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction is awarded.

Fiction

Peter Ackroyd – Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem

Kevin J. Anderson

Champions of the Force

Dark Apprentice

Jedi Search

Reed Arvin – The Wind in the Wheat

Thomas Berger – Robert Crews

Louis de Bernières – Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Lily Brett – Just Like That

George Mackay Brown – Beside the Ocean of Time

Christopher Bulis – State of Change

James Chapman – Glass (Pray the Electrons Back to Sand)

Tom Clancy – Debt of Honor

Jonathan Coe – What a Carve Up!

Michael Connelly – The Concrete Blonde

Paul Cornell

Goth Opera

No Future

Bernard Cornwell – Copperhead

Douglas Coupland – Life After God

Michael Crichton – Disclosure

Terrance Dicks – Blood Harvest

Stephen R. Donaldson – The Gap into Madness: Chaos and Order

Bret Easton Ellis – The Informers

Valerio Evangelisti – Nicolas Eymerich, inquisitore

David Frum – Dead Right

Stephen Fry – The Hippopotamus

William Gaddis – A Frolic of His Own

John Gardner – SeaFire

James Finn Garner – Politically Correct Bedtime Stories

David S. Garnett – Stargonauts

Mark Gatiss – St Anthony's Fire

Judith Godrèche – Point de côté

John Grisham – The Chamber

Romesh Gunesekera – Reef

Epeli Hau'ofa – Tales of the Tikongs

Dermot Healy – A Goat's Song

Joseph Heller – Closing Time

James Herbert – The Ghosts of Sleath

Craig Hinton – The Crystal Bucephalus

Alan Hollinghurst – The Folding Star

Nancy Huston – La Virevolte

John Irving – A Son of the Circus

Alexander Jablokov – The Breath of Suspension

James Kelman – How late it was, how late

Stephen King – Insomnia'

Dean R. Koontz – Dark Rivers of the Heart

Joe R. Lansdale – Mucho Mojo

Andy Lane – All-Consuming Fire

Ursula K. Le Guin – "The Matter of Seggri" (in Crank!, Spring)

Madeleine L'Engle – Troubling a Star

Paul Leonard – Venusian Lullaby

Jonathan Lethem – Gun, with Occasional Music

H. P. Lovecraft – Miscellaneous Writings

Steve Lyons – Conundrum

F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre – The Woman Between the Worlds

David A. McIntee – First Frontier

Javier Marías – Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí)

Simon Messingham – Strange England

James A. Michener – Recessional

Rick Moody – The Ice Storm

Jim Mortimore – Parasite

Ryū Murakami (村上 龍) – Piercing (ピアッシング, English translation 2007)

Tim O'Brien – In the Lake of the Woods

Daniel O'Mahony – Falls the Shadow

John Peel – Evolution

Ellis Peters – Brother Cadfael's Penance

Terry Pratchett

Interesting Times

Soul Music

Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津) – Notes of a Crocodile

James Redfield – The Celestine Prophecy

Matthew Reilly – Contest

Justin Richards – Theatre of War

Gareth Roberts – Tragedy Day

Gary Russell – Legacy

Sidney Sheldon – Nothing Lasts Forever

Carol Shields – The Stone Diaries

Michael Slade – Ripper

S. P. Somtow – Jasmine Nights

Danielle Steel

Accident

The Gift

Wings

Botho Strauß – Living Glimmering Lying

Antonio Tabucchi – Pereira Maintains (Sostiene Pereira)

William Trevor – Felicia's Journey

John Updike – Brazil

Andrew Vachss – Down in the Zero

Marlene van Niekerk – Triomf

Binod Bihari Verma – Balanak Bonihar O Pallavi

Jill Paton Walsh – Knowledge of Angels

Tim Winton – The Riders

Children and young people

Pamela Allen – Clippity-Clop

Chris Van Allsburg - The Mysteries of Harris Burdick

Sam McBratney – Guess How Much I Love You (board book)

Mem Fox - Tough Boris

Jennifer Rowe (as Mary-Anne Dickinson) – The Charm Bracelet (first in the Fairy Realm series of ten books)

Francesca Simon – Horrid Henry (first in the eponymous series of 24 books)

Amy Tan - Sagwa, the Chinese Siamese Cat

Jacqueline Wilson – Freddy's Teddy (first in the eponymous series of four books)

Carlos García Gual (with Willi Glasauer) – Dioses, Héroes, Mortales: Mitos y Leyendas de la Grecia Clásica|Gods, Heroes, Immortals: The Greatest Stories and Legends of Ancient Greek Mythology

Drama

Marina Carr – The Mai

Kevin Elyot – My Night With Reg

Terry Johnson – Dead Funny

Arthur Miller – Broken Glass

Yasmina Reza – Art

Poetry

Sophie Cabot Black – The Misunderstanding of Nature

Non-fiction

Michael Asher – Thesiger

Alan Bennett – Writing Home

Denise Chong – The Concubine's Children

Antonio Damasio – Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Leon Forrest – Relocations of the Spirit: Collected Essays

Martin Gilbert – In Search of Churchill

Will Hutton – The State We're In

Richard Leakey – The Origin of Humankind

Steven Pinker – The Language Instinct

Tricia Rose - Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America

Richard B. Trask – Pictures of the Pain: Photography and the Assassination of President Kennedy

Elizabeth Wurtzel – Prozac Nation

Li Zhisui (邱妙津) – The Private Life of Chairman Mao

Deaths

January 3 – Frank Belknap Long, American horror, fantasy and sci-fi writer (born 1901)

January 30 – Pierre Boulle, French novelist (born 1912)

January 31 – Erwin Strittmatter, German writer (born 1912)

February 6 – Jack Kirby, American comic book writer (born 1917)

February 11 – Paul Feyerabend, Austrian philosopher of science (born 1924)

February 26 – J. L. Carr, English novelist (born 1912)

February 27 – Harold Acton, English writer, scholar and dilettante (born 1904)

March 9 – Charles Bukowski, German-born American poet and novelist (born 1920)

March 20 – Lewis Grizzard, American journalist and author (born 1946)

March 28 – Eugène Ionesco, Romanian playwright (born 1909)

April 16 – Ralph Ellison, American scholar and writer (born 1914)

May 24 – John Wain, English novelist, poet and critic (born 1925)

May 30

Juan Carlos Onetti, Uruguayan writer (born 1909)

Isobel English (June Guesdon Jolliffe), English novelist (born 1920)

June 7 – Dennis Potter, English TV dramatist (born 1935)

June 17 – Yuri Nagibin, Soviet screenwriter and novelist (born 1920)

June 26 – Jahanara Imam, Bangladeshi writer and political activist (born 1929)

July 5 – Vaikom Muhammad Basheer, Malayalam short story writer (born 1908)

July 30 – Robin Cook (Derek Raymond), English novelist (born 1931)

August 7 – Rosa Chacel, Spanish writer (born 1898)

August 14 – Alice Childress, African American playwright, actress and young-adult novelist (born 1916)

September 7 – James Clavell, Australian-born American novelist (born 1921)

November 12 – J. I. M. Stewart (Michael Innes), Scottish novelist and critic (born 1906)

November 15 – Elizabeth George Speare, American children's writer (born 1908)

November 28 – Ian Serraillier, English novelist and poet (born 1912)

December 12 – Donna J. Stone, American poet and philanthropist (born 1933)

December 20 – Eva Alexanderson, Swedish novelist and translator (born 1911)

December 24 – John Osborne, English dramatist (born 1929)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Kenzaburō Ōe

Europe Theatre Prize: Heiner Müller

Camões Prize: Jorge Amado

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Darren Williams, Swimming In Silk

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray, Certain Things

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Barry Hill, Ghosting William Buckley

Mary Gilmore Prize: Deborah Staines, Now, Millennium

Miles Franklin Award: Rodney Hall, The Grisly Wife

Canada

Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award

Edna Staebler Award: Linda Johns, Sharing a Robin's Life 

Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: M.G. Vassanji, The Book of Secrets

See 1994 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

Prix Goncourt: Didier Van Cauwelaert, Un Aller simple

Prix Décembre: Jean Hatzfeld, L'Air de guerre and Éric Holder, La Belle Jardinière

Prix Médicis French: Yves Berger, Immobile dans le courant du fleuve

Prix Médicis International: Robert Schneider, Frère Sommeil

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: James Kelman, How Late It Was, How Late

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Theresa Breslin, Whispers in the Graveyard

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Alan Hollinghurst, The Folding Star

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Doris Lessing, Under My Skin

Cholmondeley Award: Ruth Fainlight, Gwen Harwood, Elizabeth Jennings, John Mole

Eric Gregory Award: Julia Copus, Alice Oswald, Steven Blyth, Kate Clanchy, Giles Goodland

Whitbread Best Book Award: William Trevor, Felicia's Journey

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Jan Beatty, Mad River

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Wendell Berry

Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: Judith Ortiz Cofer, The Latin Deli: Prose and Poetry

Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Stewart James, "Vanessa", and (separately) Marilyn Hacker, "Cancer Winter"

Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: A. R. Ammons, Garbage

Compton Crook Award: Mary Rosenblum, The Drylands

National Book Award for Fiction: William Gaddis, A Frolic of His Own

National Book Critics Circle Award: Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries

Nebula Award: Greg Bear, Moving Mars

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Lois Lowry, The Giver

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Philip Roth, Operation Shylock

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Edward Albee, Three Tall Women

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Yusef Komunyakaa, Neon Vernacular: New and Selected Poems

Wallace Stevens Award inaugurated with first award this year: W. S. Merwin

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Louis Edward, Mary Hood, Randall Kenan (fiction/nonfiction), Kate Wheeler Nonfiction: Kennedy Fraser, Wayne Koestenbaum (nonfiction/poetry), Rosemary Mahoney, Claudia Roth Pierpont Poetry: Mark Doty, Mary Swander (poetry/nonfiction)

Elsewhere

Montana Book Award for Poetry: Bill Manhire, ed., 100 New Zealand Poems

New Zealand Book Award for Poetry: Andrew Johnston, How to Talk

Premio Nadal: Rosa Regàs, Azul