2014 in literature

Updated on Dec 19, 2024

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 2014.

Events

January – Parts of two previously unknown poems by Greek poet Sappho are discovered on ancient papyrus. This news is being reported by multiple news sources by the end of the month.

March 6 – Joseph Boyden's novel The Orenda wins the 2014 edition of Canada Reads.

April 24 – Writers including Mark Haddon and Mary Beard join a campaign against a ruling that stops U.K. prison inmates being sent books.

May 22 – A translation of Beowulf by J. R. R. Tolkien made in 1926 is first published (his essay On Translating Beowulf had been published in 1940).

November 25 – Discovery of a previously unknown copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays (1623) in the public library at Saint-Omer in northern France is announced.

Anniversaries

28 January – On this day 75 years ago, W. B. Yeats died in Menton, France.

5 February – William Burroughs was born in 1914 (100th Anniversary)

21 February – Christopher Marlowe's 450th birthday celebrated (may or may not be his birthday)

1 March – On this date 100 years ago, Ralph Ellison (author of Invisible Man) was born.

9 March – Charles Bukowski died 20 years ago today (1994).

10 March – On this day 50 years ago, John Updike receives the National Book Award for The Centaur.

31 March – 100th anniversary of the birth of the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz in 1914.

12 April – The novel Sophie's Choice by William Styron published 35 years ago today.

4 April – Marguerite Duras was born in 1914 (100th Anniversary)

14 April – On this day 75 years ago, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published.

16 April – Ralph Ellison dies on this date 20 years ago in 1994. (see March 1 above for Ellison links)

18 April – On this day 40 years ago (1974) the first printing of J. M. Coetzee's debut novel Dusklands appeared in hardback.

23 April – It is assumed that William Shakespeare was born on this day 450 years ago (because records show that he was baptised on 26 April).

26 April – The centenary of Bernard Malamud’s birth (April 26, 1914).

May – The 100th anniversary of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.

16 June – This year's Bloomsday celebration will also mark the 100th anniversary of the publication (June 1914) of Joyce's Dubliners.

21 July – Ernest Hemingway is born on this day 115 years ago.

21 September – the 50th anniversary of the publication of Herzog by Saul Bellow, the second of his three National Book Award-winning novels.

7 July – Sir Walter Scott's debut novel, Waverley, was published (anonymously) 200 years ago today.

22 September – Alain-Fournier died in action in northern France 100 years ago today, just a year after the publication of his only novel, Le Grand Meaulnes.

27 October – On this date 100 years ago, Dylan Thomas was born.

18 November – Margaret Atwood celebrates her 75th birthday today.

2 December –The Marquis de Sade died 200 years ago today.