2002 in literature

Events

March 16 – Authorities in Saudi Arabia arrest and jail poet Abdul Mohsen Musalam and dismiss a newspaper editor following the publication of Musalam's poem The Corrupt on Earth that criticizes the state's Islamic judiciary. In it, the poet accuses some judges of being corrupt and issuing unfair rulings for their own personal benefit.

March 31 – American Writers: A Journey Through History resumes its run on C-SPAN, having been interrupted by the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.

November – Raymond Benson releases his final James Bond novel, a novelization of the film Die Another Day, bringing to a close an uninterrupted series of novels based upon Ian Fleming's character that started in 1981.

Bokklubben World Library begins publication in Norway.

Fiction

Alaa Al Aswany – The Yacoubian Building (عمارة يعقوبيان, ʿImārat Yaʿqūbīān)

Aaron Allston – Enemy Lines: Rebel Dream and Enemy Lines: Rebel Stand

Jean M. Auel – The Shelters of Stone

Paul Auster – The Book of Illusions

Iain Banks – Dead Air

Greg Bear – Vitals

Raymond Benson – Die Another Day and The Man with the Red Tattoo

Nelson Bond – The Far Side of Nowhere

William Boyd – Any Human Heart

Mircea Cărtărescu – The Encyclopedia of Dragons (Enciclopedia zmeilor)

Stephen L. Carter – The Emperor of Ocean Park

Bernard Cornwell – Sharpe's Prey, Sharpe's Skirmish and Vagabond

Michael Crichton – Prey

Elaine Cunningham – Dark Journey

L. Sprague de Camp – Aristotle and the Gun and Other Stories

Thomas R. DeGregori – The Bountiful Harvest

Dave Eggers – You Shall Know Our Velocity

Janet Evanovich – Hard Eight

Michel Faber – The Crimson Petal and the White

Giorgio Faletti – Io uccido

Mick Farren – Underland

Nancy Farmer – The House of The Scorpion

Elena Ferrante – I giorni dell'abbandono (The Days of Abandonment)

Alan Dean Foster – The Approaching Storm

Horace L. Gold and L. Sprague de Camp – None But Lucifer

Jean-Christophe Grangé – Le Concile de pierre

Niall Griffiths – Sheepshagger

John Grisham – The Summons

Joanne Harris – Coastliners

John D. Harvey – The Cleansing

Aleksandar Hemon – Nowhere Man

Carl Hiaasen – Hoot

Frank Turner Hollon – The God File

Rabee Jaber – رحلة الغرناطي (Rahlat al-Gharnati, The Journey of the Granadian)

Stephen King – Everything's Eventual: 14 Dark Tales and From a Buick 8

Rachel Klein – The Moth Diaries

Dean R. Koontz – By the Light of the Moon and One Door Away from Heaven

Ursula K. Le Guin – The Birthday of the World (anthology including Paradises Lost)

Sallie Lowenstein – Sender Unknown

Robert Ludlum – The Sigma Protocol

Valerio Massimo Manfredi – The Last Legion

Javier Marías – Your Face Tomorrow Volume 1: Fever and Spear (Tu rostro mañana 1. Fiebre y lanza)

Rohinton Mistry – Family Matters

Haruki Murakami (村上 春樹) – Kafka on the Shore (海辺のカフカ, Umibe no Kafuka)

Chuck Palahniuk – Lullaby

Orhan Pamuk – Snow

Ann Patchett – Bel Canto

James Patterson – Beach House

Terry Pratchett – Night Watch

Libby Purves – Mother Country

Pascal Quignard – Les Ombres errantes

Kathy Reichs – Grave Secrets

Nora Roberts – Face the Fire

Joel C. Rosenberg – The Last Jihad

R. A. Salvatore – Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

Alice Sebold – The Lovely Bones

Åsne Seierstad – The Bookseller of Kabul

Carol Shields – Unless

Vladimir Sorokin – Ice

Danielle Steel – The Cottage

David Storey – As It Happened

Matthew Stover – Traitor

Thomas Sullivan – Born Burning

Donna Tartt – The Little Friend

Hồ Anh Thái – Cõi người rung chuông tận thế (The Apocalypse Bell Tolls in the Human World)

William Trevor – The Story of Lucy Gault

Andrew Vachss – Only Child

Guy Vanderhaeghe – The Last Crossing

Barbara Vine – The Blood Doctor

Sarah Waters – Fingersmith

Darren Williams – Angel Rock

Walter Jon Williams – Destiny's Way

Roger Zelazny – The Last Defender of Camelot

Children and young people

Chris Van Allsburg - Zathura

Neil Gaiman – Coraline

Bob Graham – Jethro Byrd, Fairy Child

Kathleen Hague (with Michael Hague) - Good Night, Fairies

Ulrich Karger – Geisterstunde im Kindergarten (translated as The Scary Sleepover)

Jenny Nimmo – Midnight for Charlie Bone

Christopher Paolini – Eragon (first in the Inheritance Cycle of four books)

Drama

Caryl Churchill – A Number

Nilo Cruz – Anna in the Tropics

Peter Verhelst – Blush

Poetry

Neil Astley (ed.) – Staying Alive: real poems for unreal times (anthology)

Jim Dodge – Rain on the River

Linton Kwesi Johnson – Mi Revalueshanary Fren

Grazyna Miller – Alibi of a butterfly

Non-fiction

Peter Ackroyd – Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination

Jeffrey Archer (as FF 8282) – A Prison Diary: Volume 1: Belmarsh: Hell

Bija Bennett – Emotional Yoga

T. J. Binyon – Pushkin: A Biography

Stuart Christie – Granny Made me an Anarchist

Gerina Dunwich – A Witch's Guide to Ghosts and the Supernatural

Tye R. Farrell and Jeffrey Morrow – University of Psychogenic Fugue

Pim Fortuyn – De puinhopen van acht jaar Paars

Michael J. Fox – Lucky Man: A Memoir

Stephen J. Gould – I Have Landed

Peter Jennings – In Search of America

Judith Levine – Harmful to Minors

Gabriel García Márquez – Vivir para contarla (autobiography)

Jeremy Paxman – The Political Animal

Neil Peart – Ghost Rider

Rachel Simon – Riding the Bus with My Sister

David Southwell – Dirty Cash

James B. Stewart – Heart of a Soldier

Paul Theroux – Dark Star Safari

Rick Warren – The Purpose Driven Life

Alison Watt – The Last Island

Edited by John Brockman – The Next Fifty Years: Science in the First Half of the Twenty-First Century

Deaths

January 12 – Lady Violet Powell, British critic and biographer (born 1912)

January 28 – Astrid Lindgren, Swedish children's author (born 1907)

February 8 – Joachim Hoffmann, German historian (born 1930)

February 21 – A. L. Barker, English novelist (born 1918)

February 27 – Spike Milligan, Indian-born English comedian, screenwriter and poet (born 1918)

March 21 – Thomas Flanagan, American historical novelist (born 1923)

April 6 – Martin Sperr, German dramatist (born 1944)

May 6 – Pim Fortuyn, Dutch political columnist and writer (born 1948)

May 17 – Dave Berg, American cartoonist (born 1920)

May 20 – Stephen J. Gould, American paleontologist, biologist and writer (born 1941)

June 2 – Flora Lewis, American journalist (born 1922)

June 13 – R. W. B. Lewis, American critic (born 1917)

June 20

Timothy Findley, Canadian novelist and playwright (born 1930)

Kenneth Kantzer, American theologian (born 1917)

June 24 – John Kincaid McNeillie (also Ian Niall), Scottish novelist and non-fiction writer (born 1916)

July 23 – Chaim Potok, American writer (born 1929)

August 25 – Dorothy Hewett, Australian poet and playwright (born 1923)

September 17 – Eileen Colwell, English children's librarian (born 1904)

September 20 – Joan Littlewood, English theater director and biographer (born 1914)

October 13 – Stephen E. Ambrose, American historian and biographer (born 1936)

October 21 – Harbhajan Singh, Indian Punjabi poet and critic (born 1920)

October 27 – Sesto Pals, Romanian Israeli poet and philosopher (cancer, born ca. 1912)

October 28 – Sugathapala de Silva, Sri Lankan dramatist, novelist and translator writing in Sinhalese (born 1928)

November 8 – Jon Elia, Pakistani poet and philosopher writing in Urdu (born 1931)

Awards

Nobel Prize for Literature: Imre Kertész

Camões Prize: Maria Velho da Costa

Australia

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Danielle Wood, The Alphabet of Light and Dark

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Gray, Afterimages

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Alan Wearne, The Lovemakers

Mary Gilmore Prize: Geraldine McKenzie, Duty

Miles Franklin Award: Tim Winton, Dirt Music

Canada

Giller Prize: Austin Clarke, The Polished Hoe

See 2002 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

Griffin Poetry Prize: Christian Bök, Eunoia and Alice Notley, Disobedience

Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Tom Allen, Rolling Home

France

Prix Décembre: Pierre Michon, Abbés and Corps du Roi

Prix Femina: Chantal Thomas, Les adieux à la reine

Prix Femina (non-fiction): Michael Barry, Massoud

Prix Goncourt: Pascal Quignard, Les Ombres errantes

Prix Médicis French: Daniel Desmarquet, Kafka et les jeunes filles

Prix Médicis Non-Fiction: Anne F. Garréta, Pas un jour

Prix Médicis International: Philip Roth, The Human Stain

United Kingdom

Booker Prize: Yann Martel, Life of Pi

Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Sharon Creech, Ruby Holler

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Jonathan Franzen, The Corrections

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jenny Uglow, The Lunar Men: The Friends Who Made the Future 1730-1810

Cholmondeley Award: Moniza Alvi, David Constantine, Liz Lochhead, Brian Patten

Eric Gregory Award: Caroline Bird, Christopher James, Jacob Polley, Luke Heeley, Judith Lal, David Leonard Briggs, Eleanor Rees, Kathryn Simmonds

Samuel Johnson Prize: Margaret MacMillan, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War

Whitbread Best Book Award: Philip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

Orange Prize for Fiction: Ann Patchett, Bel Canto

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Porter

United States

Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Shao Wei, Pulling a Dragon's Teeth

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Grace Schulman

Arthur Rense Prize for poetry: B.H. Fairchild

Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Timothy Donnelly, “His Long Imprison'd Thought”

Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Alice Fulton, Felt

Brittingham Prize in Poetry: Anna George Meek, Acts of Contortion

Compton Crook Award: Wen Spencer, Alien Taste

Frost Medal: Galway Kinnell

Hugo Award: Neil Gaiman, American Gods

National Book Award for Fiction: to Three Junes by Julia Glass

National Book Critics Circle Award: to Atonement by Ian McEwan

Newbery Medal for children's literature: Linda Sue Park, A Single Shard

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Bel Canto by Ann Patchett

Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Richard Russo, Empire Falls

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Carl Dennis, Practical Gods

Wallace Stevens Award: Ruth Stone

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Jeffery Renard Allen, Justin Cronin, Kim Edwards, Michelle Huneven, Danzy Senna Plays: Melissa James Gibson, Evan Smith Poetry: Elizabeth Arnold, David Gewanter, Joshua Weiner

Other

Finlandia Prize: Kari Hotakainen Trench Street

IMPAC Award: Michel Houellebecq, Les Particules Élémentaires

Macmillan Writers' Prize for Africa Adult Fiction: Yvonne Vera, Stone Virgins

Premio Nadal: Ángela Vallvey, Los estados carenciales