1996 in literature

Events

• February – Andrzej Pilipiuk's debut short story Hiena in Fenix magazine introduces his antihero Jakub Wędrowycz.
• July 1 – The German orthography reform of 1996 is agreed internationally.
• July 8 – Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and 30 other books are struck from an English reading list in Lindale, Texas, as they "conflict with the values of the community."
• July 11 – As requested by Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Zephaniah hosts the President's Two Nations Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.
• October 3 – The first performance is held in New York of Eve Ensler's episodic feminist play The Vagina Monologues.
• Uncertain dates
• In the UK, the first Orange Prize for Fiction for female novelists goes to Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter.
• Peter O'Donnell publishes Cobra Trap, a final volume featuring Modesty Blaise. The first appeared in 1965.
• Margaret Mitchell's lost first novella, Lost Laysen, is published, 80 years after it was written.
• Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Romance Writings, including her novel Princess Docile'', are first published 234 years after her death.

  New books

Fiction

• Anonymous – Primary Colors: a novel of politics
• Jeffrey Archer – The Fourth Estate
• Margaret Atwood – Alias Grace
• Beryl Bainbridge – Every Man for Himself
• David Baldacci – Absolute Power
• Iain M. Banks – Excession
• David Bergen – A Year of Lesser
• Thomas Berger – Suspects
• Harold Bloom – Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection
• Dionne Brand – In Another Place, Not Here
• Brett Butler – Knee Deep in Paradise
• Ann Chamberlin – Sofia; The Sultan's Daughter
• Tom Clancy – Executive Orders
• Mary Higgins Clark – Moonlight Becomes You
• Joseph Connolly – This Is It
• Bernard Cornwell – The Bloody Ground and Enemy of God
• Mike Chapman & Craig Zobel – The Homestar Runner Enters the Strongest Man in the World Contest
• Douglas Coupland – Polaroids from the Dead
• Amanda Craig – A Vicious Circle
• Robert Crais – Sunset Express
• John Darnton – Neanderthal
• Donald Davidson – The Big Ballad Jamboree
• Fabrizio De André – Un destino ridicolo
• Seamus Deane – Reading in the Dark
• Michel Déon – The Great and the Good
• Stephen R. Donaldson – The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die
• Ben Elton – Popcorn
• Steve Erickson – Amnesiascope
• Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones' Diary
• Jon Fosse – Melancholy II
• Neil Gaiman
• *'
• *'
• Mavis Gallant – Selected Stories
• John Gardner – Cold
• Richard Garfinkle – Celestial Matters
• Alex Garland – The Beach
• William Golding – The Double Tongue
• John Grisham – The Runaway Jury and Hackers
• James L. Halperin – The Truth Machine
• Colin Harrison – Manhattan Nocturne
• Elisabeth Harvor – Let Me Be the One
• Nancy Huston – The Goldberg Variations
• Tama Janowitz – By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee
• Matt Jones – Bad Therapy
• Stephen King
• *Desperation
• *The Green Mile
• *The Regulators
• Dean R. Koontz – Intensity
• Michael P. Kube-McDowell – Before the Storm
• *Shield of Lies
• *Tyrant's Test
• Caroline Lamarche – Le Jour du chien
• Hugh Laurie – The Gun Seller
• John le Carré – The Tailor of Panama
• Paul Leonard – Speed of Flight
• Steve Lyons – Killing Ground
• George R. R. Martin – A Game of Thrones
• David A. McIntee – The Shadow of Weng-Chiang
• Terry McMillan – How Stella Got Her Groove Back
• Javier Marías – When I Was Mortal
• Vladimir Megre – Anastasiya
• Lawrence Miles – Christmas on a Rational Planet
• Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
• Shani Mootoo – Cereus Blooms at Night
• Joyce Carol Oates – We Were the Mulvaneys
• Daniel O'Mahony – The Man in the Velvet Mask
• Kate Orman – Return of the Living Dad and Sleepy
• Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club
• Lance Parkin – Cold Fusion and Just War
• Marc Platt – Downtime
• Terry Pratchett – Feet of Clay and Hogfather
• Qiu Miaojin – Last Words from Montmartre
• James Redfield – The Tenth Insight
• Justin Richards – The Sands of Time
• Gareth Roberts
• *The English Way of Death
• *The Plotters
• Mary Rosenblum – Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch – The New Rebellion
• Gary Russell – The Scales of Injustice
• Al-Tayyib Salih – Bandarshah
• Jeff Shaara – Gods and Generals
• Michael Slade – Zombie and Evil Eye
• Michael Stackpole
• *The Krytos Trap
• *Rogue Squadron
• *Wedge's Gamble
• Dave Stone – Death and Diplomacy
• Graham Swift – Last Orders
• Guy Vanderhaeghe – The Englishman's Boy
• David Foster Wallace – Infinite Jest
• Monika Maron – Animal Triste

  Children and young people

• K.A. Applegate - Animorphs series
• Marion Zimmer Bradley – Witchlight
• James C. Christensen – Voyage of the Basset
• Anne Fine – The Tulip Touch
• Elaine Forrestal – Someone Like Me
• Jeri Freedman – Season of Storms
• Rumer Godden
• *The Little Chair
• *Premlata and the Festival of Lights
• *Cockcrow to Starlight: A Day Full of Poetry
• Mark Helprin – A City in Winter
• E. T. A. Hoffmann – The Nutcracker
• Julius Lester – '
• Anne McCaffrey – No One Noticed the Cat
• Michael Morpurgo – The Butterfly Lion
• Jim Murphy – '
• Andre Norton – Catfantastic IV
• Joyce Carol Oates – '
• Iona Opie – My Very First Mother Goose
• Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife
• Alan Schroeder – '
• Diane Stanley – Leonardo da Vinci''

  Drama

• Jeff Baron – Visiting Mr. Green
• Nick Enright – Blackrock
• Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues
• Pam Gems – Stanley
• Jenny Kemp – The Black Sequin Dress
• Ayub Khan-Din – East is East
• Martin McDonagh – The Beauty Queen of Leenane
• Mark Ravenhill – Shopping and Fucking
• Wallace Shawn – The Designated Mourner
• Joshua Sobol – Alma
• Shelagh Stephenson – The Memory of Water
• Botho Strauß – Ithaka
• Enda Walsh – Disco Pigs
• Peter Whelan – The Herbal Bed

  Poetry

Non-fiction

• Nelson Algren – Nonconformity
• Stephen Ambrose – Undaunted Courage
• Andrea Aromatico – '
• John Berendt – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• Anne Berthelot – '
• David Chalmers – The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
• Norman Davies – '
• Richard Dawkins – Climbing Mount Improbable
• Antonia Fraser – '
• Daniel Goleman – Emotional Intelligence
• Jennifer Hanson – The Real Freshman Handbook
• Samuel P. Huntington – The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
• Richard Mabey – Flora Britannica
• Howard Marks – Mr Nice
• Gabriel García Márquez – News of a Kidnapping
• Dylan Morgan – The Principles of Hypnotherapy
• Anne Mullens – Timely Death
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat – How Writing Came About
• Arun Shourie – Missionaries in India
• Alexander Skutch – The Minds of Birds''

  Deaths

• January 5 – Lincoln Kirstein, American writer and impresario
• January 11 – Harold Walter Bailey, English linguistics scholar
• January 16 – Kaye Webb, English publisher and journalist
• January 21 – Efua Sutherland, Ghanaian dramatist, poet and children's author
• January 27 – Barbara Skelton, English fiction writer, memoirist and literary figure
• January 28
• *Jerry Siegel, American cartoonist
• *Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate
• February 11
• *Bob Shaw, Northern Irish science fiction writer
• *Amelia Rosselli, Italian poet
• February 18 – Cathal Ó Sándair, Irish-language novelist
• March 3 – Marguerite Duras, French dramatist and film director
• March 15 – Wolfgang Koeppen, German novelist
• March 18
• *Jacquetta Hawkes, English writer and archeologist
• *Odysseas Elytis, Greek writer and Nobel Prize laureate
• March 22 – Ian Stephens, Canadian poet
• March 29 – Frank Daniel, Czech-born screenwriter, director, and teacher
• March 31 – Dario Bellezza, Italian poet and dramatist
• April 16 – Leila Mackinlay, British romantic novelist
• April 18 – Kalim Siddiqui, Pakistani-born English writer and Islamic activist
• April 20 – Christopher Robin Milne, English writer and bookseller
• April 22 – Erma Bombeck, American humorist and writer
• April 23 – P. L. Travers, Australian-born children's writer
• May 8 – Larry Levis, American poet, author, and critic
• May 24 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist
• May 26
• *Ovidiu Papadima, Romanian critic and essayist
• *Margaret Douglas-Home, English writer and musician
• May 31 – Timothy Leary, American writer
• June 2 – Leon Garfield, English children's author
• June 14 – Gesualdo Bufalino, Italian novelist
• June 15 – Fitzroy Maclean, Scottish political writer, autobiographer and diplomat
• July 10 – Eno Raud, Estonian children's author
• July 22 – Jessica Mitford, Anglo-American author, journalist and campaigner
• September 29 – Shusaku Endo, Japanese novelist
• October 16 – Eric Malpass, English novelist
• October 24 – Sorley Maclean, Gaelic poet
• December 9 – Diana Morgan, Welsh playwright and screenwriter
• December 12 – Vance Packard, American journalist and social critic
• December 16 – Quentin Bell, English biographer and art historian
• December 20 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist and writer

  Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska
• Camões Prize: Eduardo Lourenço

  Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Bernard Cohen, The Blindman's Hat
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Peter Bakowski, In the Human Night
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Eric Beach, Weeping for Lost Babylon
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Jordie Albiston, Nervous Arcs
• Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, Highways to a War

  Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Margaret Atwood: – Alias Grace
• See 1996 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: George G. Blackburn, The Guns of Normandy

  France

• Prix Goncourt: Pascale Roze, Le Chasseur Zéro
• Prix Décembre: Régis Debray, Loués soient nos seigneurs: une éducation politique
• Prix Médicis French: Orlanda – Jacqueline Harpman and L'Organisation – Jean Rolin
• Prix Médicis International: Himmelfarb – Michael Kruger, Germany and Sonietchka – Ludmila Oulitskaïa, Russia

  United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Graham Swift, Last Orders
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Melvin Burgess, Junk
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Graham Swift, Last Orders, and Alice Thompson, Justine
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life
• Cholmondeley Award: Elizabeth Bartlett, Dorothy Nimmo, Peter Scupham, Iain Crichton Smith
• Eric Gregory Award: Sue Butler, Cathy Cullis, Jane Griffiths, Jane Holland, Chris Jones, Sinéad Morrissey, Kate Thomas
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Redgrove
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level

  United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Helen Conkling, Red Peony Night
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: John Voiklis, "The Princeling's Apology", and Sarah Arvio, "Visits from the Seventh"
• Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Kenneth Koch, One Train
• Compton Crook Award: Daniel Graham Jr., The Gatekeepers
• Hugo Award: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
• National Book Award: Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever and Other Stories
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for Fiction Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for Poetry William Matthews, Time and Money
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for General nonfiction Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for Biography Robert Polito,
• Nebula Award: Nicola Griffith, Slow River
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Karen Cushman, The Midwife's Apprentice
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Richard Ford, Independence Day
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Jonathan Larson, Rent
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Richard Ford – Independence Day
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham: The Dream of the Unified Field
• Wallace Stevens Award: Adrienne Rich
• Whiting Awards: Fiction: Anderson Ferrell, Cristina García, Molly Gloss, Brian Kiteley, Chris Offutt, Judy Troy, A.J. Verdelle. Nonfiction: Patricia Storace. Poetry: Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Elizabeth Spires

  Elsewhere

• International Dublin Literary Award: David Malouf, Remembering Babylon
• Premio Nadal: Pedro Maestre, Matando dinosaurios con tirachinas