1996 in literature

Events

July 1 – German orthography reform of 1996 agreed internationally.

July 8 – Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and 30 other books, are removed from an English reading list in Lindale, Texas, because they "conflicted with the values of the community".

July 11 – At the request of Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Zephaniah hosts the president's Two Nations Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.

October 3 – First performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.

Unknown dates

In the UK, the first Orange Prize for Fiction for female novelists goes to Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter.

Peter O'Donnell publishes Cobra Trap, his final volume featuring Modesty Blaise. The first appeared in 1965.

Margaret Mitchell's lost first novella, Lost Laysen, is published 80 years after it was written.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Romance Writings, including her novel Princess Docile, are first published 234 years after her death.

Fiction

Stephen Ambrose – Undaunted Courage

Anonymous (Joe Klein) – Primary Colors: a novel of politics

Jeffrey Archer – The Fourth Estate

Margaret Atwood – Alias Grace

Beryl Bainbridge – Every Man for Himself

David Baldacci – Absolute Power

Iain M. Banks – Excession

Thomas Berger – Suspects

Harold Bloom – Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection

Dionne Brand – In Another Place, Not Here

Brett Butler – Knee Deep in Paradise

Ann Chamberlin – Sofia; The Sultan's Daughter

Tom Clancy – Executive Orders

Mary Higgins Clark – Moonlight Becomes You

Joseph Connolly – This Is It

Bernard Cornwell – The Bloody Ground and Enemy of God

Douglas Coupland – Polaroids from the Dead

Amanda Craig – A Vicious Circle

Robert Crais – Sunset Express

John Darnton – Neanderthal

Donald Davidson – The Big Ballad Jamboree

Fabrizio De André – Un destino ridicolo

Seamus Deane – Reading in the Dark

Michel Déon – The Great and the Good (La Cour des grands)

Stephen R. Donaldson – The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die

Ben Elton – Popcorn

Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones' Diary

Jon Fosse – Melancholy II (Melancholia II)

Mavis Gallant – Selected Stories

John Gardner – Cold

Richard Garfinkle – Celestial Matters

Alex Garland – The Beach

William Golding – The Double Tongue

John Grisham – The Runaway Jury and Hackers (short stories)

James L. Halperin – The Truth Machine

Colin Harrison – Manhattan Nocturne

Elisabeth Harvor – Let Me Be the One (short stories)

Nancy Huston – The Goldberg Variations

Tama Janowitz – By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee

Matt Jones – Bad Therapy

Stephen King – Desperation, The Green Mile and The Regulators

Dean R. Koontz – Intensity

Michael P. Kube-McDowell – Before the Storm, Shield of Lies and Tyrant's Test

Caroline Lamarche – Le Jour du chien ("The Day of the Dog")

Hugh Laurie – The Gun Seller

John le Carré – The Tailor of Panama

Paul Leonard – Speed of Flight

Steve Lyons – Killing Ground

George R. R. Martin – A Game of Thrones

David A. McIntee – The Shadow of Weng-Chiang

Terry McMillan – How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Javier Marías – When I Was Mortal (Cuando fui mortal, short stories)

Vladimir Megre – Anastasiya

Lawrence Miles – Christmas on a Rational Planet

Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance

Shani Mootoo – Cereus Blooms at Night

Joyce Carol Oates – We Were the Mulvaneys

Daniel O'Mahony – The Man in the Velvet Mask

Kate Orman – Return of the Living Dad and Sleepy

Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club

Lance Parkin – Cold Fusion and Just War

Marc Platt – Downtime

Terry Pratchett – Feet of Clay and Hogfather

Qiu Miaojin (posthumous) – Last Words from Montmartre

James Redfield – The Tenth Insight

Justin Richards – The Sands of Time

Gareth Roberts – The English Way of Death and The Plotters

Mary Rosenblum – Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities

Kristine Kathryn Rusch – The New Rebellion

Gary Russell – The Scales of Injustice

Al-Tayyib Salih – Bandarshah

Jeff Shaara – Gods and Generals

Michael Slade – Zombie and Evil Eye

Michael Stackpole – The Krytos Trap, Rogue Squadron and Wedge's Gamble

Dave Stone – Death and Diplomacy

Graham Swift – Last Orders

Guy Vanderhaeghe – The Englishman's Boy

David Foster Wallace – Infinite Jest

Children and young people

Anne Fine – The Tulip Touch

Rumer Godden

The Little Chair

Premlata and the Festival of Lights

Cockcrow to Starlight: A Day Full of Poetry (anthology)

Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) - A City in Winter

E. T. A. Hoffmann (with Roberto Innocenti) - The Nutcracker

Michael Morpurgo – The Butterfly Lion

Jim Murphy - A YOUNG PATRIOT: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy

Iona Opie - My Very First Mother Goose

Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife (second in the His Dark Materials trilogy)

Diane Stanley - Leonardo da Vinci

Various Authors (with Willi Glasauer) - Hitos y Mitos de la Literatura Fantástica|The Milestones and the Stories of Greatest Fantasy Literature

Drama

Jeff Baron – Visiting Mr. Green

Nick Enright – Blackrock

Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues

Pam Gems – Stanley

Ayub Khan-Din – East is East

Martin McDonagh – The Beauty Queen of Leenane

Mark Ravenhill – Shopping and Fucking

Wallace Shawn – The Designated Mourner

Joshua Sobol – Alma

Botho Strauß – Ithaka

Enda Walsh – Disco Pigs

Non-fiction

John Berendt – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

David Chalmers – The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory

Norman Davies – Europe: A History

Richard Dawkins – Climbing Mount Improbable

Alan Downs – Corporate Executions: the Ugly Truth about Downsizing – How Corporate Greed is Shattering Lives, Companies, and Communities

Daniel Goleman – Emotional Intelligence

Samuel P. Huntington – The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Richard Mabey – Flora Britannica

Howard Marks – Mr Nice

Gabriel García Márquez – News of a Kidnapping (Noticia de un secuestro)

Anne Mullens – Timely Death

Deaths

January 5 – Lincoln Kirstein, American writer and impresario (born 1907)

January 16 – Kaye Webb, English publisher and journalist (born 1914)

January 21 – Efua Sutherland, Ghanaian dramatist, poet and children's author (born 1924)

January 27 – Barbara Skelton, English fiction writer, memoirist and literary figure (born 1916)

January 28

Jerry Siegel, American cartoonist (born 1914)

Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (myocardial infarction, born 1940)

February 11

Bob Shaw, Northern Irish science fiction writer (born 1931)

Amelia Rosselli, Italian poet (born 1930)

February 18 – Cathal Ó Sándair, Irish-language novelist (born 1922)

March 3 – Marguerite Duras, French dramatist and film director (born 1914)

March 15 – Wolfgang Koeppen, German novelist (born 1906)

March 18 – Odysseas Elytis, Greek writer and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)

March 22 – Ian Stephens, Canadian poet (year of birth not known)

March 29 – Frank Daniel, Czech-born screenwriter, director, producer and teacher (born 1926)

March 31 – Dario Bellezza, Italian poet and dramatist (HIV, born 1944)

April 16 – Leila Mackinlay, British romantic novelist (born 1910)

April 20 – Christopher Robin Milne, English writer and bookseller (born 1920)

April 22 – Erma Bombeck, American humorist and writer (born 1927)

April 23 – P. L. Travers, Australian-born children's writer (born 1899)

May 8 – Larry Levis, American poet, author, and critic (b. 1946)

May 24 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist (born 1908)

May 26

Ovidiu Papadima, Romanian critic and essayist (born 1909)

Margaret Douglas-Home, English writer and musician (born 1906)

May 31 – Timothy Leary, American writer (born 1920)

June 2 – Leon Garfield, English children's author (born 1921)

June 14 – Gesualdo Bufalino, Italian novelist (born 1920)

June 15 – Fitzroy Maclean, Scottish political writer, autobiographer and diplomat (born 1911)

June 26 – Veronica Guerin, Irish crime reporter (murdered, born 1958)

July 10 – Eno Raud, Estonian children's author (born 1928)

July 22 – Jessica Mitford, Anglo-American author, journalist and campaigner (born 1917)

September 29 – Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作), Japanese novelist (born 1923)

October 16 – Eric Malpass, English novelist (born 1910)

October 24 – Sorley Maclean, Gaelic poet (born 1911)

December 9 – Diana Morgan, Welsh playwright and screenwriter (born 1908)

December 12 – Vance Packard, American journalist and social critic (born 1914)

December 16 – Quentin Bell, English biographer and art historian (born 1910)

December 20 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist and writer (born 1934)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska

Camões Prize: Eduardo Lourenço

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Bernard Cohen, The Blindman's Hat

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Peter Bakowski, In the Human Night

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Eric Beach, Weeping for Lost Babylon

Mary Gilmore Prize: Jordie Albiston, Nervous Arcs

Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, Highways to a War

Canada

Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award

Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Margaret Atwood: – Alias Grace

See 1996 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: George G. Blackburn, The Guns of Normandy

France

Prix Goncourt: Pascale Roze, Le Chasseur Zéro

Prix Décembre: Régis Debray, Loués soient nos seigneurs: une éducation politique

Prix Médicis French: Orlanda – Jacqueline Harpman and L'Organisation – Jean Rolin

Prix Médicis International: Himmelfarb – Michael Kruger, Germany and Sonietchka – Ludmila Oulitskaïa, Russia

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Graham Swift, Last Orders

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Melvin Burgess, Junk

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Graham Swift, Last Orders, and Alice Thompson, Justine

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life

Cholmondeley Award: Elizabeth Bartlett, Dorothy Nimmo, Peter Scupham, Iain Crichton Smith

Eric Gregory Award: Sue Butler, Cathy Cullis, Jane Griffiths, Jane Holland, Chris Jones, Sinéad Morrissey, Kate Thomas

Orange Prize for Fiction: Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Redgrove

Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Helen Conkling, Red Peony Night

Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: John Voiklis, "The Princeling's Apology", and (separately) Sarah Arvio, "Visits from the Seventh"

Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Kenneth Koch, One Train

Compton Crook Award: Daniel Graham Jr., The Gatekeepers

Hugo Award: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer

National Book Award: Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever and Other Stories

National Book Critics Circle Award: for Fiction Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds

National Book Critics Circle Award: for Poetry William Matthews, Time and Money

National Book Critics Circle Award: for General nonfiction Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action

National Book Critics Circle Award: for Biography Robert Polito, Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson

Nebula Award: Nicola Griffith, Slow River

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Karen Cushman, The Midwife's Apprentice

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Richard Ford, Independence Day

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Jonathan Larson, Rent

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Richard Ford – Independence Day

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham: The Dream of the Unified Field

Wallace Stevens Award: Adrienne Rich

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Anderson Ferrell, Cristina García, Molly Gloss, Brian Kiteley, Chris Offutt (fiction/nonfiction), Judy Troy, A.J. VerdelleNonfiction: Patricia Storace (nonfiction/poetry)Poetry: Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Elizabeth Spires

Elsewhere

IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: David Malouf, Remembering Babylon

Premio Nadal: Pedro Maestre, Matando dinosaurios con tirachinas