This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1997.
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)
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
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
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
Ted Hughes – Tales from Ovid
Karen Armstrong – Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet
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
Bill Bryson – A Walk in the Woods
Iris Chang – The Rape of Nanking
Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel
Jenny Diski – Skating to Antarctica
Alan Downs – Beyond the Looking Glass: Overcoming the Seductive Culture of Corporate Narcissism
Michael Drosnin – The Bible Code
Gerina Dunwich – A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination
Benjamin Fondane – Le voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager (posth.)
Timothy Ferris – The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report
Stephen Fry – Moab Is My Washpot (autobiography)
Charlotte Gray – Mrs. King
Alan Guth – The Inflationary Universe
Jesse Lee Kercheval – Building Fiction
James McBride – The Color of Water
Adele Morales – The Last Party: Scenes From My Life with Norman Mailer
Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont – Fashionable Nonsense
Maria Todorova – Imagining the Balkans
Kevin Warwick – March of the Machines
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)
May 9 – Rina Lasnier, Canadian poet (born 1915)
June 8 – George Turner, Australian novelist and critic (born 1916)
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)
Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo
Europe Theatre Prize: Robert Wilson
Camões Prize: Pepetela
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
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
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
Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Guillermo Cabrera Infante
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
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
IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Javier Marias, A Heart So White
Premio Nadal: Carlos Cañeque, Quién
1997 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
