This article presents lists of literary events and publications in 2003.
Children and young people
Atsuko Asano – No. 6 (あさの あつこ)
Cressida Cowell – How to Train Your Dragon (first in the eponymous series of 16 books)
Elizabeth Laird – The Garbage King
Jim Murphy - An American Plague: the true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793
Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
Tyne O'Connell – Pulling Princes
J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Lemony Snicket – The Slippery Slope
Dugald Steer (with Helen Ward, Wayne Anderson, etc.) – Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons
Ann Turnbull – No Shame, No Fear
Jacqueline Wilson – Girls in Tears (fourth in the Girls series of four books)
Yang Hongying (楊紅櫻) – Four Troublemakers (四个调皮蛋, first in the Mo's Mischief – 淘气包马小跳 – series of eight books)
Richard Greenberg – The Violet Hour
David Hare – The Permanent Way
Kwame Kwei-Armah – Elmina's Kitchen
Lynn Nottage – Intimate Apparel
Pope John Paul II – Roman Triptych. Meditations
Dean Kalimniou – Kipos Esokleistos
Banglapedia – National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
Patricia Brown – A League Of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls
Andrea Curtis – Into the Blue
Gerina Dunwich – Dunwich's Guide to Gemstone Sorcery
Marc Ferro – Le Livre noir du colonialisme
John Fowles – The Journals – Volume 1
Anna Funder – Stasiland
Mattias Gardell – Gods of the Blood
A. C. Grayling – What Is Good?: The Search for the Best Way to Live
Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
Don Miller – Blue Like Jazz
Michael Moore – Dude, Where's My Country?
Azar Nafisi – Reading Lolita in Tehran
Alanna Nash – The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
Chuck Palahniuk – Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
Jane Smiley – Charles Dickens
Clark Ashton Smith – Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
David Starkey – Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
Lynne McTaggart – The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
Amy Tan - The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings
Lynne Truss – Eats, Shoots & Leaves
January 5 – Jean Kerr, American author and playwright (born 1923)
January 21 – Paul Haines, American-born Canadian poet and songwriter (born 1933)
February 16 – Aleksandar Tišma, Serbian novelist (born 1924)
February 26 – Quentin Keynes, English explorer, writer and filmmaker (born 1921)
March 11 – Brian Cleeve, English-born Irish writer and broadcaster (born 1921)
March 12 – Howard Fast, American novelist (born 1914)
March 14 – Lucian Boz, Romanian and Australian literary critic (born 1908)
April 3 – Michael Kelly, American journalist (born 1957)
April 7 – Cecile de Brunhoff, French children's writer (born 1903)
June 21
George Axelrod, American dramatist and screenwriter (born 1922)
Leon Uris, American novelist (born 1924)
July 6 – Kathleen Raine, English poet, scholar, and translator (born 1908)
July 10 – Winston Graham, English novelist (born 1908)
July 14 – Éva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer (born 1926)
July 15 – Roberto Bolaño, Chilean-born fiction writer (born 1953)
July 16 – Carol Shields, American-born Canadian novelist (breast cancer, born 1935)
September 3 – Alan Dugan, American poet (born 1923)
November 9 – Alan Davidson, Northern Irish historian and food writer (born 1924)
December 12 – Fadwa Toukan, Palestinian poet (born 1917)
Nobel Prize for Literature: J. M. Coetzee
Camões Prize: Rubem Fonseca
The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Nicholas Angel, Drown Them in the Sea
C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Emma Lew, Anything the Landlord Touches
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jill Jones, Screens Jets Heaven
Miles Franklin Award: Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country
Giller Prize: M.G. Vassanji – The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
See 2003 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of the winners of those awards.
Griffin Poetry Prize: Margaret Avison, Concrete and Wild Carrot and Paul Muldoon, Moy sand and gravel
Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Alison Watt, The Last Island
Booker Prize: D.B.C. Pierre, Vernon God Little
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light
Cholmondeley Award: Ciarán Carson, Michael Donaghy, Lavinia Greenlaw, Jackie Kay
Eric Gregory Award: Jen Hadfield, Zoe Brigley, Paul Batchelor, Olivia Cole, Sasha Dugdale, Anna Woodford
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 – The Power of Place
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew O'Hagan, Personality
Orange Prize for Fiction: Valerie Martin, Property
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: U. A. Fanthorpe
Whitbread Book of The Year Award: Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel
Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: David Shumate, High Water Mark
American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry: W.S. Merwin
Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Julie Sheehan, “Brown-headed Cow Birds”
Bollingen Prize for Poetry: Adrienne Rich
Brittingham Prize in Poetry: Brian Teare, The Room Where I Was Born
Compton Crook Award: Patricia Bray, Devlin's Luck
Frost Medal: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Hugo Award: Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids
Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2003 Lambda Literary Awards.
National Book Award for Fiction: to The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard
National Book Critics Circle Award: to The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Newbery Medal for children's literature: Avi, Crispin: The Cross of Lead
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to The Caprices by Sabina Murray
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
Wallace Stevens Award: Richard Wilbur
Whiting Awards:
Fiction: Courtney Angela Brkic (fiction/nonfiction), Alexander Chee, Agymah Kamau, Ann Pancake, Lewis Robinson, Jess Row
Nonfiction: Christopher Cokinos, Trudy Dittmar
Plays: Sarah Ruhl
Poetry: Major Jackson
International Dublin Literary Award: Orhan Pamuk My Name is Red
Premio Nadal: Andrés Trapiello, Los amigos del crimen perfecto
2003 in literature Wikipedia (Text) CC BY-SA
