2006 in literature

Events

April 7 – Mr Justice Peter Smith delivers judgment in the copyright case begun on February 27 against publisher Random House over the bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code (2003) in the High Court of Justice in London, finding that author Dan Brown has not breached the copyright of Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh in their book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (published in 1982 as non-fiction). The judgment itself contains a coded message on the whim of the judge.

Summer – Brutalism becomes the first literary movement to be launched via the social networking site Myspace.

June – Ciaran Creagh's play Last Call, based loosely on the hanging of murderer Michael Manning in 1954 as witnessed by the playwright's father, is staged in Mountjoy Prison, Dublin, where it is set.

July 14 – The Times Literary Supplement reports on the discovery of a missing copy of Shelley's Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things, an 1811 pamphlet containing a 172-line poem which criticizes war, politics and religion; although published anonymously, the poem is thought to have contributed to the rebel poet's expulsion from the University of Oxford (which acquires the unique copy of the pamphlet in 2015).

July 21 – The writers of America's Next Top Model go on strike while working on Cycle 7, due to be broadcast on the new CW Network in September 2006. The writers seek representation through the Writers Guild of America, which would allow them regulated wages, access to portable health insurance, and pension benefits. These benefits would be similar to those given to writers on scripted shows.

August 1 – The University of Helsinki library becomes the National Library of Finland (Kansalliskirjasto).

September – Museum of Modern Literature opens in Marbach am Neckar, Schiller's birthplace in Germany.

September 20 – The Writers Guild of America, West, holds a Los Angeles rally in support of the "America's Next Top Model" writers' strike. President Patric Verrone says: "Every piece of media with a moving image on a screen or a recorded voice must have a writer, and every writer must have a WGA contract."

November 6 – WGAw files an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board after "Top Model" producers say that the next season of the show will not require writers. In response, Verrone said, "as they demanded union representation, the company decided they were expendable. This is illegal strikebreaking."

The first full-length novel in the Manx language, Dunveryssyn yn Tooder-Folley ("The Vampire Murders") is published by Brian Stowell, after being serialized in the press.

Fiction

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Half of a Yellow Sun

Chris Adrian – The Children's Hospital (August 28)

Naomi Alderman – Disobedience

Martin Amis – House of Meetings

Margaret Atwood – Moral Disorder

François Bégaudeau – Entre les murs (Between the Walls)

Peter Behrens – The Law of Dreams

William Boyd – Restless

T. C. Boyle – Talk Talk

James Chapman – Stet (January 7)

Douglas Coupland – jPod

Mark Z. Danielewski – Only Revolutions

Patricia Duncker – Miss Webster and Chérif

Dave Eggers – What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng (October 25)

Wendy Guerra – Todos se van (Everyone's Leaving)

Rawi Hage – De Niro's Game

Anosh Irani – The Song of Kahunsha

Lloyd Jones – Mister Pip

Vincent Lam – Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

David Mitchell – Black Swan Green

Alice Munro – The View from Castle Rock

Amélie Nothomb – Journal d'Hirondelle

Joyce Carol Oates – Black Girl/White Girl

Heather O'Neill – Lullabies for Little Criminals

Carolyn Parkhurst – Lost and Found

Thomas Pynchon – Against the Day (November 21)

Will Self – The Book of Dave

Olga Slavnikova – 2017

Lynne Tillman – American Genius, A Comedy

John Updike – Terrorist (June 6)

Mario Vargas Llosa – The Bad Girl (Travesuras de la niña mala)

Children and young people

Chris Van Allsburg - Probuditi!

Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson – Peter and the Shadow Thieves (July 15)

John Boyne – The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

Eoin Colfer – Artemis Fowl and the Lost Colony (September 12, fifth in the Artemis Fowl series)

John Fardell – The Flight of the Silver Turtle

Jean-Luc Fromental - 365 Penguins

Julia Golding - Secret of the Sirens (August 3, UK, first in the Companions Quartet)

John Green – Looking for Alaska

Charlie Higson – Blood Fever (January 1, second in the Young James Bond series)

D. J. MacHale – The Quillan Games (May 16)

David Mitchell – Black Swan Green (April 11)

Robert Muchamore

Divine Madness (novel) (fifth in the CHERUB series)

Man vs Beast (sixth in the CHERUB series)

Jenny Nimmo - Charlie Bone and the Hidden King

Garth Nix – Sir Thursday (March 1) (fourth in the Keys to the Kingdom series)

Terry Pratchett – Wintersmith (October 1, third in the Tiffany Aching series)

Lemony Snicket – The End (October 13) (13th in A Series of Unfortunate Events)

Dugald Steer (with Nghiem Ta, etc.) – Pirateology: A Pirate Hunter's Companion

Paul Stewart – Freeglader (February 28, eighth in The Edge Chronicles)

Jonathan Stroud – Ptolemy's Gate

Toshihiko Tsukiji and Senmu – Kämpfer (けんぷファー, November 24)

Markus Zusak – The Book Thief (March 14)

Fantasy

Joe Abercrombie – The Blade Itself (May 4, first in The First Law series)

R. Scott Bakker – The Thousandfold Thought (January 20, third in the Prince of Nothing trilogy)

Steven Erikson – The Bonehunters (March 1, sixth in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series)

Terry Goodkind – Phantom (July 18, 10th in the Sword of Truth series)

Laurell K. Hamilton – Mistral's Kiss (December 12, fifth in the Merry Gentry series)

Sherrilyn Kenyon – Dark Side of the Moon (May 30, 15th in the Dark-Hunter series)

Gregory Keyes – The Blood Knight (July 11, third in The Kingdoms of Thorn and Bone series)

Dean Koontz – Brother Odd (November 28, third in the Odd Thomas series)

Tanith Lee – Piratica II (second in The Piratica Series)

Scott Lynch – The Lies of Locke Lamora (June 27, first in the Gentleman Bastards series)

Patricia A. McKillip – Solstice Wood

Zhang Muye – Ghost Blows Out the Light (March)

James Patterson – School's Out — Forever (May 23, second in the Maximum Ride series)

Angie Sage – Flyte (March 1, second in the Septimus Heap series)

Darren Shan

Bec (October 2, fourth in The Demonata series)

Demon Thief (June 7) (second in The Demonata series)

Slawter (November 1, third in The Demonata series)

Catherynne M. Valente – The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden (October 31, first volume of The Orphan's Tales)

Jeff VanderMeer – Shriek: An Afterword (August 8)

Rick Riordan – The Sea of Monsters

Historical fiction

Kunal Basu – Racists

Bernard Cornwell

The Lords of the North

Sharpe's Fury

Charles Frazier – Thirteen Moons (October 3)

Michael Moorcock – The Vengeance of Rome (January 5, fourth in the Pyat Quartet)

Naomi Novik – Temeraire (January 7)

Sarah Waters – The Night Watch (March 23)

Jack Whyte – Knights of the Black and White (August 8, first in the Templar Trilogy)

Gene Wolfe – Soldier of Sidon (October 31, third book in the Soldier series)

Horror

James Patterson & Peter de Jonge – Beach Road (May 1)

Victor Heck – Downward Spiral (November 27)

Stephen King

Cell (January 24)

Lisey's Story (October 24)

Thomas Ligotti – Teatro Grottesco

James Robert Smith and Stephen Mark Rainey (ed.) – Evermore

Humor and satire

Max Barry – Company (January 17)

Ben Elton – Chart Throb

Bobby Henderson – The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (March 28)

Maddox – The Alphabet of Manliness (June)

Carl Hiaasen – Nature Girl (November 14)

Vladimir Sorokin – Day of the Oprichnik

Mystery and crime

Gilbert Adair – The Act of Roger Murgatroyd

Robert Baer – Blow the House Down a novel, (May 30)

Mary Higgins Clark – Two Little Girls in Blue

Ranj Dhaliwal – Daaku (October 6)

Michael Connelly – Echo Park (October 9)

Patricia Cornwell

At Risk (May 23, first in the At Risk series)

Book of the Dead (October 24, 15th in the Kay Scarpetta series)

Clive Cussler – Treasure of Khan (December 5)

Jeffery Deaver

The Cold Moon (May 30, seventh in the Lincoln Rhyme series)

More Twisted (December 16)

Nelson DeMille – Wild Fire (November 6)

Thomas Harris – Hannibal Rising (December 5, fourth in the Hannibal Lecter series)

Tony Hillerman – The Shape Shifter (November 1, 12th in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee series)

Dean Koontz – The Husband (May 30)

Val McDermid – The Grave Tattoo (February 6)

James Patterson

Cross (November 14, 12th in the Alex Cross series)

Judge and Jury (July 31)

James Patterson & Maxine Paetro – The 5th Horseman (February 13)

Michael Slade – Kamikaze (November 7)

Thomas Sullivan – The Water Wolf (October 3)

Andrew Vachss – Mask Market

Samantha Weinberg – Secret Servant: The Moneypenny Diaries

Jack Whyte – The Eagle (December 26, ninth in the Camulod Chronicles series)

Romance

Karen Marie Moning – Darkfever (October 31)

Stephenie Meyer – New Moon

Nicholas Sparks – Dear John (October 30)

Danielle Steel – H.R.H. (October 31)

Science fiction

Aaron Allston – Betrayal (May 30, first in the Legacy of the Force series)

Elizabeth Bear – Carnival (November 28)

Troy Denning – Tempest (November 28)

David Louis Edelman – Infoquake (July 5, first in the Jump 225 trilogy)

Drew Karpyshyn – Path of Destruction: a Novel of the New Republic (September 26)

Paul Levinson – The Plot to Save Socrates (February 6)

Cormac McCarthy – The Road (September 26)

Yvonne Navarro – Ultraviolet (March 1)

Tim Powers – Three Days to Never (August 1)

J. D. Robb – Born in Death (November 7, 23rd in the In Death series)

Masamune Shirow – Ghost in the Shell 1.5: Human Error Processor

Charles Stross – Glasshouse (June 27)

Karen Traviss

Bloodlines (August 29, second in the Legacy of the Force series)

Triple Zero (second in the Star Wars: Republic Commando series)

Peter Watts – Blindsight (October 3)

Stephen Woodworth – From Black Rooms (October 31, fourth in the Violet series), alternate history crime novel

Timothy Zahn – Outbound Flight (January 31)

Drama

Salvatore Antonio – In Gabriel's Kitchen

Jacob M. Appel – Arborophilia

Tanya Barfield – Blue Door

Howard Brenton – In Extremis

John Cariani – Almost Maine

Nilo Cruz – Beauty of the Father

Brian Friel – Faith Healer

Richard Greenberg – A Naked Girl on the Appian Way

Rinne Groff – What Then

Lisa Kron – Well

Neil Labute – Fat Pig

David Lindsay-Abaire – Rabbit Hole

Itamar Moses – Bach at Leipzig

Joël Pommerat – Cet enfant

Nina Raine – Rabbit

Adam Rapp – Red Light Winter

Non-fiction

Debby Applegate – The Most Famous Man in America

Karen Armstrong – Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time

Philip Ball – The Devil's Doctor: Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science

Alison Bechdel – Fun Home

Christopher Catherwood – A Brief History of the Middle East

Rajiv Chandrasekaran – Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone

Julia Child with Alex Prud'homme – My Life in France

Richard Dawkins – The God Delusion

Alain de Botton – The Architecture of Happiness

Alan Downs – The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man's World

Wayne Federman with Marshall Terrill and Pete Maravich – Maravich

Al Gore – An Inconvenient Truth

Glenn Greenwald – How Would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values from a President Run Amok

John Grisham – The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town

Derrick Jensen – Endgame

Elizabeth Kolbert – Field Notes from a Catastrophe

Christian Kracht, Eva Munz and Lukas Nikol – The Ministry of Truth (Die totale Erinnerung)

Rohan Kriwaczek – An Incomplete History of the Art of Funerary Violin

Linden MacIntyre – Causeway

Larry Miller – Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Contemporary Life

Max Nemni and Monique Nemni – Young Trudeau: Son of Quebec, Father of Canada, 1919–1944

Ruth Scurr – Fatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution

Richard Sennett – The Culture of the New Capitalism

Zhi Gang Sha – Soul, Mind, Body Medicine

James Sites – Inger!

Tavis Smiley – What I Know For Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America

Hywel Williams – Days That Changed the World: the 50 Defining Events of World History

Deaths

January 4 – Irving Layton, Canadian poet (born 1912)

January 16 – Jan Mark, English children's writer (born 1943)

January 30 – Wendy Wasserstein, American playwright (born 1950)

January – Hilda Ellis Davidson, English antiquarian and academic (born 1914)

February 2 – Chris Doty, Canadian dramatist (born 1966)

February 4 – Betty Friedan, American feminist writer (born 1921)

February 8 – Michael Gilbert, English crime writer (born 1912)

February 9 – Ena Lamont Stewart, Scottish playwright (born 1912)

February 11 – Peter Benchley, American novelist (born 1940)

February 17 – Sybille Bedford, German-born English novelist and journalist (born 1911)

February 20 – Lucjan Wolanowski (Lucjan Kon), Polish writer, journalist and traveler (born 1920)

February 21

Gennadiy Aygi, Chuvashian poet and translator (born 1934)

Theodore Draper, American historian (born 1912)

February 22 – Hilde Domin, German writer (born 1909)

February 24 – Octavia E. Butler, American science fiction writer (born 1947)

February 25 – Margaret Gibson, Canadian novelist and story writer (born 1948)

March 27 – Stanisław Lem, Polish science fiction writer (born 1921)

March 30 – John McGahern, Irish novelist, dramatist and short story writer (born 1934)

April 3 – Muhammad al-Maghut, Syrian Ismaili poet (born 1934)

April 6 – Leslie Norris, Anglo-Welsh poet and author (born 1921)

April 13 – Muriel Spark, Scottish-born novelist (born 1918)

April 25 – Jane Jacobs, American urban planning critic and activist (born 1916)

May 9 – Jerzy Ficowski, poet, writer and translator (born 1924)

May 17 – Clare Boylan, Irish novelist (born 1948)

May 18 – Gilbert Sorrentino, American novelist and poet (born 1929)

June 17 – James H. McClure, South African-born crime writer (born 1939)

June 28 – Nigel Cox, New Zealand novelist (born 1951)

July 17 – Mickey Spillane, American crime writer (born 1918)

July 28 – David Gemmell, English fantasy novelist (born 1948)

August 16 – Alex Buzo, Australian playwright and author (born 1944)

August 17 –Shamsur Rahman, Bengali poet (born 1929)

August 21 – S. Yizhar, Israeli novelist (born 1916)

August 25 – Silva Kaputikyan, Armenian poet (born 1919)

August 30 – Naguib Mahfouz, Egyptian novelist, 1988 Nobel laureate (born 1911)

September 1 – György Faludy, Hungarian poet, writer and translator (born 1910)

September 12 – Edna Staebler CM, Canadian author and literary journalist (born 1906)

October 13 – Protiva Bose, Bengali writer and singer (born 1915)

October 17 – Ursula Moray Williams, English children's writer (born 1911)

October 25 – Paul Ableman, English writer of erotic fiction and playwright (born 1927)

November 1 – William Styron, American novelist (born 1925)

November 6 – Nelson S. Bond, American writer (born 1908)

November 9 – Ellen Willis, American journalist and critic (born 1941)

November 10 – Jack Williamson, American science fiction author (born 1908)

November 15 – George G. Blackburn MC, Canadian author (born 1917)

November 23

Jesús Blancornelas, Mexican journalist (born 1936)

Richard Clements, English journalist (born 1928)

November 24

William Diehl, American author (born 1924)

Phyllis Fraser, American writer, publisher and actor (born 1916)

George W. S. Trow, American writer and media critic (born 1943)

November 27 – Bebe Moore Campbell, American author (born 1950)

December 21 – Philippa Pearce, English children's writer (born 1920)

December 26 – John Heath-Stubbs, English poet and translator (born 1918)

Awards

Nobel Prize in Literature: Orhan Pamuk

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Cormac McCarthy, The Road

James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Byron Rogers, The Man Who Went into the West: The life of R.S. Thomas

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Belinda Castles, The River Baptists

Compton Crook Award: Maria Snyder, Poison Study

C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: John Tranter, Urban Myths: 210 Poems

Europe Theatre Prize: Harold Pinter

Eric Gregory Award: Fiona Benson, Retta Bowen, Frances Leviston, Jonathan Morley, Eoghan Walls

2006 Governor General's Awards: see article

Griffin Poetry Prize: Sylvia Legris, Nerve Squall and Kamau Brathwaite, Born to Slow Horses

Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jaya Savige, Latecomers

Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2006 Lambda Literary Awards.

Man Booker Prize: Kiran Desai for The Inheritance of Loss.

Miles Franklin Award: Roger McDonald, The Ballad of Desmond Kale

Premio Nadal: Eduardo Lago, Llámame Brooklyn

Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Fleur Adcock

Scotiabank Giller Prize: Vincent Lam, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

Wallace Stevens Award: Michael Palmer

Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Charles D’Ambrosio, Yiyun Li, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, Nina Marie Martínez, Patrick O’Keeffe

Plays: Stephen Adly Guirgis, Bruce Norris

Poetry: Sherwin Bitsui, Tyehimba Jess, Suji Kwock Kim

Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Francis Chalifour, After

Camões Prize: José Luandino Vieira (refused)

Orange Prize for Fiction: to On Beauty by Zadie Smith

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: to March by Geraldine Brooks

National Book Award for Fiction: to The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

National Book Critics Circle Award: to The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to The March by E.L. Doctorow