1993 in literature

Events

• September 24 – Former president and writer Zviad Gamsakhurdia returns to Georgia to establish a government in exile in the city of Zugdidi.
• November 17 – Annie Proulx wins the National Book Award in the United States for her novel The Shipping News.

• Indrani Aikath Gyaltsen's novel Cranes' Morning appears in India, but proves to be plagiarized from Elizabeth Goudge's The Rosemary Tree ; its author will commit suicide in 1994.
• Professor Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time becomes the longest-running book on The Sunday Times UK bestseller list.
• Reality television contest Million's Poet is launched in the United Arab Emirates.
• Todur Zanet's translation of Jean Racine's Bajazet is produced by Moldova 1, a seminal moment in the development of Gagauz-language theater.
• The Guodian Chu Slips, including the oldest known version of Laozi's Tao Te Ching, a chapter from the Book of Rites, content from the Book of Documents and the previously lost Xing Zi Ming Chu, written on bamboo and dated before 300 BCE, are found in a tomb near Guodian, Jingmen.

  New books

Fiction

• Stephen Ambrose – Band of Brothers
• Jeffrey Archer – Honour Among Thieves
• David Banks – Iceberg
• Iain Banks – Complicity
• Pat Barker – The Eye in the Door
• Greg Bear – Moving Mars
• Daniel Blythe – The Dimension Riders
• William Boyd – The Blue Afternoon
• Sandra Boynton – Barnyard Dance!
• Christopher Bulis – Shadowmind
• Anthony Burgess – A Dead Man in Deptford
• Ramsey Campbell – '
• Tom Clancy – Without Remorse
• Deborah Joy Corey – Losing Eddie
• Bernard Cornwell – Rebel
• Robert Crais – Free Fall
• Maurice G. Dantec – La Sirène rouge
• Peter Darvill-Evans – Deceit
• Hollace Davids and Paul Davids – Mission from Mount Yoda
• Lindsey Davis – Poseidon's Gold
• L. Sprague de Camp – Rivers of Time
• Stephen R. Donaldson – The Gap into Power: A Dark and Hungry God Arises
• Roddy Doyle – Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
• Helen Dunmore – Zennor in Darkness
• Shusaku Endo – Deep River
• Steve Erickson – Arc d'X
• Jeffrey Eugenides – The Virgin Suicides
• Richard Paul Evans – The Christmas Box
• Sebastian Faulks – Birdsong
• Amanda Filipacchi – Nude Men
• Neil Gaiman
• *'
• *'
• John Gardner – Never Send Flowers
• Ernest Gaines – A Lesson Before Dying
• William Gibson – Virtual Light
• John Grisham – The Client
• Hal and Scott French – Just This Once
• Jesse Lee Kercheval – The Museum of Happiness
• Stephen King – Nightmares & Dreamscapes
• Nancy Kress – The Aliens of Earth
• John le Carré – The Night Manager
• Lois Lowry – The Giver
• Robert Ludlum – The Scorpio Illusion
• Amin Maalouf – Le Rocher de Tanios
• David A. McIntee – White Darkness
• Andy McNab – Bravo Two Zero
• David Malouf – Remembering Babylon
• Gita Mehta – A River Sutra
• Jim Mortimore
• *Blood Heat
• * – Lucifer Rising
• Taslima Nasrin – Lajja
• Patrick O'Brian – Clarissa Oakes
• Kate Orman – The Left-Handed Hummingbird
• Tim Pears – In the Place of Fallen Leaves
• Neil Penswick – The Pit
• Terry Pratchett – Men at Arms
• E. Annie Proulx – The Shipping News
• Jean Raspail – Sept cavaliers
• Ishmael Reed – Japanese by Spring
• Anne Rice – Lasher
• Gareth Roberts – The Highest Science
• J. Jill Robinson – Lovely In Her Bones
• Nigel Robinson – Birthright
• W. G. Sebald – The Emigrants
• Will Self – My Idea of Fun
• Vikram Seth – A Suitable Boy
• Ahdaf Soueif – In the Eye of the Sun
• Danielle Steel – Vanished
• Emil Tode – Piiririik
• Jesús Torbado – El peregrino
• Sue Townsend – '
• Scott Turow – Pleading Guilty
• Kathy Tyers – The Truce at Bakura
• Buket Uzuner – The Sound of Fishsteps
• Andrew Vachss – Shella
• Mario Vargas Llosa – Death in the Andes
• Ivan Vladislavic – The Folly
• Robert James Waller – Slow Waltz at Cedar Bend
• Irvine Welsh – Trainspotting
• Herman Wouk – The Hope
• Austin Wright – Tony and Susan
• Timothy Zahn – The Last Command
• Roger Zelazny – A Night in the Lonesome October

  Children and young people

• Janet and Allan Ahlberg – It Was a Dark and Stormy Night
• Nelson Algren – He Swung and He Missed
• Chris Van Allsburg – The Sweetest Fig
• Malorie Blackman – Operation Gadgetman!
• Susan Cooper – The Boggart
• Richard Dalby – Mistletoe & Mayhem: Horrific Tales for the Holidays
• Mem Fox – Time for Bed
• Cornelia Funke – Wild Chicks
• Johanna Hurwitz - New Shoes for Silvia
• Jim Murphy – Across America on an Emigrant Train
• Larry Niven – Bridging the Galaxies
• Rodman Philbrick – Freak the Mighty
• Allen Say – Grandfather's Journey
• Marjorie W. Sharmat – Nate the Great and the Pillowcase
• Francisco Calvo Serraller – Grandes Maestros de la Pintura
• Theresa Tomlinson – The Forestwife
• Nancy Willard – A Starlit Somersault Downhill

  Drama

• Parv Bancil – Ungrateful Dead
• April De Angelis – Playhouse Creatures
• David Hare – The Absence of War
• Tom Stoppard – Arcadia

  Poetry

• Leonard Cohen – Stranger Music
• Paul Durcan – A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems
• Dejan Stojanović – Krugovanje: 1978–1987

  Non-fiction

• Martin Amis – '
• Khursheed Kamal Aziz – The Murder of History in Pakistan: A critique of history textbooks used in Pakistan
• Malcolm Bradbury – The Modern British Novel
• Richard Dawkins – Viruses of the Mind
• Shobha De and Khushwant Singh – Uncertain Liaisons
• Alexandre Farnoux – '
• Zlata Filipović – Zlata's Diary
• Bob Flowerdew – The Organic Gardener
• Tamala Krishna Goswami – Happiness is a Science – Aditi's Vow
• Linda Holmen, Mary Santella-Johnson and Bill Watterson – Teaching with Calvin and Hobbes
• Laënnec Hurbon – Les mystères du vaudou
• Linda Johns – Sharing a Robin's Life
• Leon M. Lederman and Dick Teresi – The God Particle
• James Lees-Milne – People and Places: Country House Donors and the National Trust
• Scott McCloud – Understanding Comics
• Ram Swarup – Hindu View of Christianity and Islam
• Miranda Seymour – Ottoline Morrell: Life on the Grand Scale
• Howard Stern – Private Parts
• Walter Stewart – Too Big to Fail
• Margaret Thatcher – The Downing Street Years
• Gordon S. Wood – The Radicalism of the American Revolution

  Deaths

• January 6 – Ștefan Baciu, Romanian and Brazilian poet, novelist and literary promoter
• January 18 – Eleanor Hibbert, English historical novelist
• January 22 – Kōbō Abe, Japanese novelist and playwright
• February 5 – William Pène du Bois, American author and illustrator
• March 9 – C. Northcote Parkinson, English naval historian and critic of business methods
• April 15
• *Leslie Charteris, Anglo-American thriller writer
• *Robert Westall, English novelist and children's writer
• April 23 – Bertus Aafjes, Dutch poet
• May 6 – Dorothy B. Hughes, American crime writer and critic
• June 19 – Sir William Golding, English novelist and poet
• July 10 – Ruth Krauss, American children's author and poet
• August 28 – E. P. Thompson, English political historian
• September 7 – Eugen Barbu, Romanian novelist, playwright and journalist
• September 16 – Oodgeroo Noonuccal, aboriginal Australian poet
• November 1 – Maeve Brennan, Irish short story writer and journalist
• November 22 – Anthony Burgess, English novelist
• December 4 – Margaret Landon, American historical novelist
• December 28 – William L. Shirer, historian
• December 31 – Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Georgian dissident, scientist and writer
• Unknown date – Parijat, Nepalese novelist and poet

  Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Toni Morrison
• Camões Prize: Rachel de Queiroz

  Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Helen Demidenko, The Hand That Signed The Paper
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, Translations from the Natural World
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, Translations from the Natural World
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Jill Jones, The Mask and Jagged Star
• Miles Franklin Award: Alex Miller, The Ancestor Game

  Canada

• See 1993 Governor General's Awards for a complete lLiza Potvin wins the 1993
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Liza Potvin, White Lies
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Elizabeth Hay, The Only Snow in Havana

  France

• Prix Goncourt: Amin Maalouf, Le Rocher de Tanios
• Prix Décembre: René de Obaldia. Exobiographie
• Prix Médicis French: Emmanuèle Bernheim, Sa femme
• Prix Médicis International: Paul Auster, Leviathan

  United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Roddy Doyle, Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Robert Swindells, Stone Cold
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Caryl Phillips, Crossing the River
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Richard Holmes, Dr Johnson and Mr Savage
• Cholmondeley Award: Patricia Beer, George Mackay Brown, P. J. Kavanagh, Michael Longley
• Whitbread Book Award: Joan Brady, Theory of War
• The Sunday Express Book of the Year: William Boyd, The Blue Afternoon

  United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Natasha Saj, Red Under the Skin
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: George Starbuck
• American Academy of Arts and Letters gold Medal for Belles Lettres, Elizabeth Hardwick
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Stephen Yenser, "Blue Guide"
• Compton Crook Award: Holly Lisle, Fire in the Mist
• Frost Medal: William Stafford
• National Book Award for Fiction: E. Annie Proulx, The Shipping News
• National Book Critics Circle Award: Alan Lomax, The Land Where the Blues Began
• Nebula Award: Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Mars
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Cynthia Rylant, Missing May
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: E. Annie Proulx, Postcards
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Tony Kushner,
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Robert Olen Butler, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Louise Gluck, The Wild Iris
• Whiting Awards:
• Writers Guild of America Awards 1993 : Best Adapted Screenplay: Steven Zaillian, Schindler's List

  Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Rafael Argullol Murgadas, La razón del mal