1997 IN LITERATURE

The year '1997 in literature' involved some significant events and new books.

Contents

Events

New books

New drama

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

Deaths

Awards

Australia

Canada

France

United Kingdom

United States

Elsewhere

Notes

Events

★ Tom Clancy signs a book deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. (both part of Pearson Education), giving him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books . A second agreement gives him another US$25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal. Clancy follows this up with an agreement with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the an ABC television miniseries in an agreement worth US$22 million bringing the total value of the package to US$97 million.

★ December 30 - The memoir, ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' by Maya Angelou, is removed from the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, because it "portrays white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people" [CNN].^[1]

★ ''Jacket'' online literary magazine founded.

New books

★ Ben Aaronovitch & Kate Orman - ''So Vile a Sin''

★ Mitch Albom - ''Tuesdays With Morrie''

★ Martin Amis - ''Night Train''

★ John Banville - ''The Untouchable''

★ Marie Bashkirtseff - ''I Am the Most Interesting Book of All'' (Translation)

★ Raymond Benson

★
★ ''Tomorrow Never Dies''

★
★ ''Zero Minus Ten''

★ Jonathan Blum & Kate Orman - ''Vampire Science''

★ Simon Bucher-Jones - ''Ghost Devices''

★ Christopher Bulis - ''A Device of Death''

★ Candace Bushnell - ''Sex and the City''

★ Mary Higgins Clark - ''Pretend You Don't See Her''

★ Patricia Cornwell

★
★ ''Hornet's Nest''

★
★ ''Unnatural Exposure''

★ Paul Cornell - ''Oh No It Isn't!''

★ Ann C. Crispin

★
★ ''The Hutt Gambit''

★
★ ''The Paradise Snare''

★ Don DeLillo - ''Underworld''

★ Anita Diamant - ''The Red Tent''

★ Terrance Dicks

★
★ ''The Eight Doctors''

★
★ ''Mean Streets''

★ Fernanda Eberstadt - ''When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth''

★ Charles Frazier - ''Cold Mountain''

★ Anthony Frewin - ''London Blues''

★ John Grisham - ''The Partner''

★ Barbara Hambly - ''Planet of Twilight''

★ Nancy Huston - ''Instruments of Darkness''

★ Matt Jones - ''Beyond the Sun''

★ Sebastian Junger - ''The Perfect Storm''

★ Winona LaDuke - ''Last Standing Woman''

★ Paul Leonard - ''Genocide''

★ Ann-Marie MacDonald - ''Fall On Your Knees''

★ Ian R. MacLeod - ''Voyages by Starlight''

★ David A. McIntee - ''The Dark Path''

★ Lawrence Miles

★
★ ''Alien Bodies''

★
★ ''Down''

★ Mark Morris - ''The Bodysnatchers''

★ Jim Mortimore - ''Eternity Weeps''

★ Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum

★
★ ''The Room With No Doors''

★
★ ''So Vile a Sin''

★
★ ''Vampire Science''

★ Lance Parkin - ''The Dying Days''

★ James Patterson - ''Cat and Mouse''

★ Cyril Pearl - ''Morisson of Peking''

★ John Peel - ''War of the Daleks''

★ Marc Platt - ''Lungbarrow''

★ Terry Pratchett - ''Jingo''

★ Philip Pullman - ''The Subtle Knife''

★ Thomas Pynchon - ''Mason & Dixon''

★ Kathy Reichs - ''Déjâ Dead''

★ Justin Richards - ''Dragons' Wrath''

★ Mordecai Richler - ''Barney's Version''

★ Gareth Roberts - ''The Well-Mannered War''

★ Philip Roth - ''American Pastoral''

★ J. K. Rowling - ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone''

★ Gary Russell - ''Deadfall''

★ Sarah Ferguson - ''Budgie the Little Helicopter''

★ Carol Shields - ''Larry's Party''

★ Sidney Sheldon - ''The Best Laid Plans''

★ Michael Stackpole - ''The Bacta War

★ Danielle Steel

★
★ ''The Ghost''

★
★ ''The Ranch''

★
★ ''Special Delivery''

★ Dave Stone

★
★ ''Burning Heart''

★
★ ''Ship of Fools''

★ William Sutcliffe - ''Are You Experienced?''

★ Kurt Vonnegut - ''Timequake''

★ Timothy Zahn - ''Specter of the Past''

★ Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold - ''Donnerjack''

New drama

★ Thomas Kilroy - ''The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde''

★ Peter Whelan - ''The Herbal Bed''

Poetry

★ Ted Hughes - ''Tales from Ovid''

Non-fiction

★ Karen Armstrong - ''

★ Dave Barry - ''Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs''

★ Jean-Dominique Bauby - ''The Diving Bell and the Butterfly''

★ Cari Beauchamp - ''

★ Bill Bryson - ''A Walk in the Woods''

★ Michael Drosnin - ''The Bible Code''

★ Gerina Dunwich - ''A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination''

★ Stephen Fry - ''Moab Is My Washpot'' (autobiography)

★ Reinhold Heller - ''

★ James McBride - ''The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother''

★ Maria Todorova - ''Imagining the Balkans''

Births

★

Deaths

★ January 19 - James Dickey, poet, novelist

★ February 3 - Bohumil Hrabal, author

★ April 5 - Allen Ginsberg, poet

★ August 2 - William S. Burroughs, novelist

★ August 31 - Diana Princess of Wales (b. 1961)

★ October 14 - Harold Robbins, novelist

★ October 16 - James A. Michener, novelist and historian

Awards

★ Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo

Australia

★ The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Eva Sallis, ''Hiam''

★ C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, ''Subhuman Redneck Poems''

★ Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Anthony Lawrence, ''The Viewfinder''

★ Mary Gilmore Prize: Morgan Yasbincek, ''Night Reversing''

Canada

★ Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award

★ Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Mordecai Richler: - ''Barney's Version''

★ See 1997 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

★ Prix Goncourt: Patrick Rambaud, ''La Bataille''

★ Prix Décembre: Lydie Salvayre, ''La Compagnie des spectres''

★ Prix Médicis International: T. Coraghessan Boyle, ''America''

★ Prix Médicis French: ''Les Sept Noms du peintre'' - Philippe Le Guillou

United Kingdom

★ Booker Prize: Arundhati Roy, ''The God of Small Things''

★ Cholmondeley Award: Alison Brackenbury, Gillian Clarke, Tony Curtis, Anne Stevenson

★ Eric Gregory Award: Matthew Clegg, Sarah Corbett, Polly Clark, Tim Kendal, Graham Nelson, Matthew Welton

★ Orange Prize for Fiction: Anne Michaels, ''Fugitive Pieces''

★ Whitbread Best Book Award: Ted Hughes, ''Tales from Ovid''

United States

★ Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Richard Blanco, ''City of a Hundred Fires''

★ Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Fred Chappell

★ American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, John Ashbery

★ Compton Crook Award: Richard Garfinkle, ''Celestial Matters''

★ Nebula Award: Vonda McIntyre, ''The Moon and the Sun''

★ Newbery Medal for children's literature: E. L. Konigsburg, ''The View from Saturday''

★ Pulitzer Prize for Drama: ''no award given''

★ Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Steven Millhauser - ''Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer''

★ Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Lisel Mueller: ''Live Together: New and Selected Poems''

★ Wallace Stevens Award: Anthony Hecht

Elsewhere

★ IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Javier Marias, ''A Heart So White''

★ Premio Nadal: Carlos Cañeque, ''Quién''

Notes

1.
"CNN.com: Harry Potter, 'Huckleberry Finn' among controversial.."
webpage:
CNN-banned-books.