2001 in literature

Events

February 15 – Author Michael Crichton signs a new two-book deal with HarperCollins Publishers, reportedly earning $40 million for the two books.

July 19 – English popular novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer is found guilty of perjury in an earlier libel trial and sentenced to imprisonment.

September 19 – Amiri Baraka reads his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?" at a poetry festival in New Jersey.

December 10 – The live-action film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's classic book, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, is premièred in London. The film is directed by Peter Jackson. Its release has a noticeable impact on readership of the original trilogy.

Fiction

Niccolò Ammaniti – Io non ho paura

Raymond Benson – Never Dream of Dying

Dennis Bock – The Ash Garden

Ben Bova – The Precipice

Geraldine Brooks – Year of Wonders

Lois McMaster Bujold – The Curse of Chalion

Joseph Connolly – S.O.S.

Bernard Cornwell

Sharpe's Trafalgar

Gallows Thief

Douglas Coupland – All Families Are Psychotic

Achmat Dangor – Bitter Fruit

Umberto Eco – Baudolino

James Ellroy – The Cold Six Thousand

Leif Enger – Peace Like a River

Sebastian Faulks – On Green Dolphin Street

Leon Forrest – Meteor in the Madhouse

Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections

Rodrigo Fresán – Mantra

Diana Gabaldon – The Fiery Cross

Martin H. Greenberg and Larry Segriff – Past Imperfect

Kate Grenville – The Idea of Perfection

John Grisham

A Painted House

Skipping Christmas

Joanne Harris – Five Quarters of the Orange

Nick Hornby – How to Be Good

Silas House – Clay's Quilt

Nancy Huston – Dolce Agonia

John Irving – The Fourth Hand

P. D. James – Death in Holy Orders

Greg Keyes

Edge of Victory: Conquest

Edge of Victory: Rebirth

Stephen King – Black House and Dreamcatcher

Christian Kracht – 1979

Hanif Kureishi – Gabriel's Gift

Joe R. Lansdale – Captains Outrageous

John le Carré – The Constant Gardener

Ursula K. Le Guin – The Birthday of the World, and Other Stories

Pedro Lemebel – Tengo miedo torero (My tender matador)

Mario Vargas Llosa – The Feast of the Goat (La fiesta del chivo)

David Lodge – Thinks ...

James Luceno – Cloak of Deception

Ian McEwan – Atonement

Juliet Marillier – Child of the Prophecy

Yann Martel – Life of Pi

V S Naipaul – Half a Life

R. K. Narayan – Under the Banyan Tree

Joyce Carol Oates – Middle Age: A Romance

Chuck Palahniuk – Choke

Terry Pratchett

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

Thief of Time

The Last Hero

Sven Regener – Herr Lehmann

Kathy Reichs – Fatal Voyage

Alain Robbe-Grillet – La Reprise

Jean-Christophe Rufin – Rouge Brésil

Salman Rushdie – Fury

Richard Russo – Empire Falls

Eric Schlosser – Fast Food Nation

W. G. Sebald – Austerlitz

Michael Slade – Death's Door

Olga Slavnikova – Bessmertniy (The Immortal)

Danielle Steel – Leap of Faith

Antonio Tabucchi – It's Getting Later All the Time

Amy Tan – The Bonesetter's Daughter

Timothy Taylor – Stanley Park

Anne Tyler – Back When We Were Grownups

Jane Urquhart – The Stone Carvers

Andrew Vachss – Pain Management

Tim Winton – Dirt Music

Carlos Ruiz Zafón – La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind)

Juli Zeh – Eagles and Angels

Children and young people

David Almond - Secret Heart

Malorie Blackman – Noughts and Crosses (first in the Noughts and Crosses series of five books)

Eoin Colfer – Artemis Fowl (first in the eponymous series of eight books)

Hilary McKay – Saffy's Angel

Michael Morpurgo

More Muck and Magic

Out of the Ashes

Toro! Toro!

Linda Sue Park – A Single Shard

J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Jacqueline Wilson – Sleepovers

Drama

Richard Alfieri – Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks

Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti – Behsharam (Shameless)

Abdelkader Benali – Yasser

Neil LaBute – The Shape of Things

Lynn Manning – Weights

Non-fiction

Tom Allen – Rolling Home

Dionne Brand – A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging

Eamon Duffy – The Voices of Morebath. Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village

Barbara Ehrenreich – Nickel and Dimed

Mem Fox - Reading Magic

Antonia Fraser – Marie Antoinette: The Journey

Stephen Hawking – The Universe in a Nutshell

Laura Hillenbrand – Seabiscuit: An American Legend

Christopher Hitchens – The Trial of Henry Kissinger

Gary Lachman – Turn Off Your Mind

Lawrence Lessig – The Future of Ideas

Normand Lester – Le Livre noir du Canada Anglais (The Black Book of English Canada)

Steven Levy – Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving Privacy in the Digital Age

Margaret MacMillan – Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War

Michael Moore – Stupid White Men

Mumtaz Mufti – Ali Pur Ka Aeeli

T. Subba Row Collected Writings

Pavel Polian – Against Their Will... A History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR

E. Hoffmann Price – Book of the Dead

Miranda Seymour – Mary Shelley

Ivan Vladislavic – The Restless Supermarket

Frans de Waal – The Ape and the Sushi Master

Benjamin Woolley – The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr. Dee

Deaths

January 8 – Catherine Storr, English children's writer (born 1913)

January 11 – Lorna Sage, English scholar (born 1943)

January 31 – Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian-born American science fiction writer (born 1923)

February 7 – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author and aviator (born 1906)

February 14

Alan Ross, Indian-born English poet and editor (born 1922)

Richard Laymon, American horror fiction writer (born 1947)

March 12 – Robert Ludlum, American novelist (born 1927)

May 11 – Douglas Adams, English writer, humorist and dramatist (born 1952)

May 13 – R.K. Narayan, Indian novelist writing in English (born 1906)

June 1 – Hank Ketcham, American cartoonist (born 1920)

June 27 – Tove Jansson, Finnish children's author writing in Swedish (born 1914)

July 3 – Mordecai Richler, Canadian author, screenwriter and essayist (born 1931)

July 18 – James Hatfield, American author (born 1958)

July 31 – Poul Anderson, American fantasy and sci-fi author (born 1926)

August 6 – Jorge Amado, Brazilian writer (born 1912)

August 20 – Fred Hoyle, English astronomer and science fiction writer (born 1915)

November 10 – Ken Kesey, American author (born 1935)

November 25 – David Gascoyne, English surrealist poet (born 1916)

December 21 – Dick Schaap, American journalist and author (born 1934)

December 14 – W. G. Sebald, German novelist and academic (born 1944)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: V.S. Naipaul

Camões Prize: Eugénio de Andrade

Australia

Miles Franklin Award: Frank Moorhouse, Dark Palace

Canada

Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Richard B. Wright – Clara Callan

See 2001 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Taras Grescoe – Sacré Blues

France

Prix Décembre: Chloé Delaume, Le Cri du sablier

Prix Femina: Marie Ndiaye, Rosie Carpe

Prix Goncourt: Jean-Christophe Rufin, Rouge Brésil

Prix Médicis French: Edwy Plenel, Secrets de jeunesse

Prix Médicis Non-Fiction: Le Loup mongol

Prix Médicis International: Antonio Skarmeta, La noce du poète

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Sid Smith, Something Like a House

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3 – Fighting for Britain 1937–1946

Cholmondeley Award: Ian Duhig, Paul Durcan, Kathleen Jamie, Grace Nichols

Eric Gregory Award: Leontia Flynn, Thomas Warner, Tishani Doshi, Patrick Mackie, Kathryn Gray, Sally Read

Griffin Poetry Prize: Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours and Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh, translation of Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan

Hugo Award: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Samuel Johnson Prize: Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Michael Longley

Orange Prize for Fiction: to The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville

Whitbread Best Book Award: Patrick Neate, Twelve Bar Blues

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize awarded to Gabriel Gudding for A Defense of Poetry

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, Frederick Morgan

Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “Circus Fire, 1944”

Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Louise Glück

Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Robin Behn, Horizon Note

Compton Crook Award: Syne Mitchell, Murphy's Gambit

Frost Medal: Sonia Sanchez

Hugo Award: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Richard Peck, A Year Down Yonder

National Book Award for Fiction: to The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

National Book Critics Circle Award: to Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Philip Roth for The Human Stain

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: David Auburn, Proof

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Dunn, Different Hours

Wallace Stevens Award: John Ashbery

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Emily Carter, Matthew Klam, Akhil Sharma, Samrat Upadhyay, John Wray Nonfiction: Judy Blunt, Kathleen Finneran Plays: Brighde Mullins Poetry: Joel Brouwer, Jason Sommer

Other

Europe Theatre Prize: Lev Dodin, Michel Piccoli

Finlandia Prize: Hannu Raittila, Canal Grande

IMPAC Award: Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief

Orange Prize for Fiction: Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection

Premio Nadal: Fernando Marías, El Niño de los Coroneles

Premio Strega: Domenico Starnone, Via Gemito

Premio de Novela Ciudad de Torrevieja (first award): Javier Reverte, La Noche Detenida

Viareggio Prize: Niccolò Ammaniti, Io non ho paura, Michele Ranchetti, Verbale, and Giorgio Pestelli, Canti del destino