1997 in literature

Events

• February 20 – Allen Ginsberg makes a final public appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam. He continues to write through his final illness, his last poem being "Things I'll Not Do " written on March 30.
• May 27 – Shakespeare's Globe in London, a reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre, opens with a production of Shakespeare's Henry V.
• June 3 – The supposed climax of Max Beerbohm's 1916 short story "Enoch Soames" occurs at the old British Museum Reading Room in London.
• June 26 – J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is published in London by Bloomsbury Publishing, in an edition of 500 copies.
• July 13 – The release occurs in Ireland) of the film of Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel The Butcher Boy. The author plays Jimmy The Skite, the town drunk.
• October – The online literary magazine Jacket is founded.
• November 24 – The new British Library building in London designed by Colin St John Wilson opens to readers.
• 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, for portraying "white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people".

• Tom Clancy signs a deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. giving him US $50 million for the world English rights to two new books. A second agreement pays another $25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal, and a third, with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with an ABC television miniseries for $22 million.
• Janet Dailey admits to plagiarism of the novels of the fellow American bestselling romance writer Nora Roberts.

  New books

Fiction

• Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman – So Vile a Sin
• Mitch Albom – Tuesdays With Morrie
• Martin Amis – Night Train
• Iain Banks – A Song of Stone
• John Banville – The Untouchable
• Hazel Barnes – The Story I Tell Myself
• Marie Bashkirtseff – I Am the Most Interesting Book of All
• Raymond Benson – Tomorrow Never Dies and Zero Minus Ten
• Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman – Vampire Science
• Roberto Bolaño – Last Evenings on Earth
• Pascal Bruckner – Les Voleurs de beauté
• Simon Bucher-Jones – Ghost Devices
• Christopher Bulis – A Device of Death
• Tim Burton – The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories
• Candace Bushnell – Sex and the City
• Peter Carey – Jack Maggs
• Caleb Carr – The Angel of Darkness
• Agatha Christie – collected short stories
• *The Harlequin Tea Set
• *While the Light Lasts and Other Stories
• Mary Higgins Clark – Pretend You Don't See Her
• Daniel Clowes – Ghost World
• Warwick Collins – Gents
• Bernard Cornwell
• *Sharpe's Tiger
• *'
• Patricia Cornwell
• *Hornet's Nest
• *Unnatural Exposure
• Paul Cornell – Oh No It Isn't!
• Jim Crace – Quarantine
• Robert Crais – Indigo Slam
• Ann C. Crispin
• *The Hutt Gambit
• *The Paradise Snare
• 'Misha Defonseca' – '
• 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
• Bernardine Evaristo – Lara
• Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
• Anthony Frewin – London Blues
• Anastasia Gosteva – Дочь самурая
• John Grisham – The Partner
• Barbara Hambly – Planet of Twilight
• Allison Hedge Coke – Dog Road Woman
• Matt Jones – Beyond the Sun
• Sebastian Junger – The Perfect Storm
• Winona LaDuke – Last Standing Woman
• Joe R. Lansdale – Bad Chili
• Paul Leonard – Genocide
• Ann-Marie MacDonald – Fall on Your Knees
• Bernard MacLaverty – Grace Notes
• Ian R. MacLeod – Voyages by Starlight
• Norman Mailer – The Gospel According to the Son
• Ian McEwan – Enduring Love
• David A. McIntee – The Dark Path
• Lawrence Miles
• *Alien Bodies
• *Down
• Mark Morris – The Bodysnatchers
• Toni Morrison – Paradise
• Jim Mortimore – Eternity Weeps
• Ryū Murakami – In the Miso Soup
• Courttia Newland – The Scholar
• Kate Orman – The Room with No Doors
• Hanne Ørstavik – Kjærlighet
• Lance Parkin – The Dying Days
• James Patterson – Cat and Mouse
• Cyril Pearl – Morisson of Peking
• John Peel – War of the Daleks
• Pepetela – A Gloriosa Família
• Marc Platt – Lungbarrow
• Terry Pratchett – Jingo
• Annie Proulx – "Brokeback Mountain"
• Thomas Pynchon – Mason & Dixon
• Kathy Reichs – Déjà Dead
• Nina Revoyr – The Necessary Hunger
• Justin Richards – Dragons' Wrath
• Mordecai Richler – Barney's Version
• Gareth Roberts – The Well-Mannered War
• Philip Roth – American Pastoral
• Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things
• Don Miguel Ruiz – The Four Agreements
• Gary Russell
• *Deadfall
• *Instruments of Darkness
• Will Self – Great Apes
• 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?
• Antonio Tabucchi – The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro
• Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
• Zlatko Topčić – Nightmare
• Kurt Vonnegut – Timequake
• Lulu Wang – Het Lelietheater
• Niall Williams – Four Letters of Love
• Connie Willis – To Say Nothing of the Dog
• Timothy Zahn – Specter of the Past
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold – Donnerjack

  Children and young people

• Lynne Reid Banks – Harry the Poisonous Centipede: A Story to Make You Squirm
• 'Asta Bowen –
• Cao Wenxuan – The Grass House
• Sarah Ferguson – Budgie the Little Helicopter
• Cornelia Funke – Dragon Rider
• Virginia Hamilton – A Ring of Tricksters: Animal Tales from America, the West Indies, and Africa
• Mark Helprin – The Veil of Snows
• William Mayne – Lady Muck
• Eloise Jarvis McGraw – The Moorchild
• Junko Morimoto – The Two Bullies
• Barbara Nichol – Dippers
• Dav Pilkey – The Adventures of Captain Underpants
• Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife
• Rick Riordan – Big Red Tequila
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
• Ron Roy – The Absent Author
• Vivian Walsh – Olive, the Other Reindeer
• Jacqueline Wilson – Girls in Love

  Drama

• Jon Fosse – Nightsongs
• Lee Hall – Spoonface Steinberg
• Moisés Kaufman –
• Thomas Kilroy – The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde
• Conor McPherson – The Weir
• Patrick Marber – Closer
• Richard Nelson – Goodnight Children Everywhere
• Peter Whelan – The Herbal Bed

  Poetry

• Ted Hughes – Tales from Ovid

  Non-fiction

• Dave Barry – Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs
• Jean-Dominique Bauby – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
• Cari Beauchamp – Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood
• Jan Bondeson – A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
• Bill Bryson – A Walk in the Woods
• D. K. Chakrabarti – Colonial Indology : sociopolitics of the ancient Indian past
• Iris Chang – The Rape of Nanking
• Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel
• Jenny Diski – Skating to Antarctica
• Michael Drosnin – The Bible Code
• Gerina Dunwich – A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination
• Geoff Dyer – Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence
• Timothy Ferris – '
• Benjamin Fondane – Le Voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager
• Stephen Fry – Moab Is My Washpot
• Charlotte Gray – Mrs. King
• Alan Guth – The Inflationary Universe
• Robert Hughes – '
• Jesse Lee Kercheval – Building Fiction
• Geneviève Lacambre – '
• B. B. Lal – The Earliest civilization of South Asia: rise, maturity, and decline
• Peter Maas – Underboss
• Deborah Madison - Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
• James McBride – The Color of Water
• Adele Morales – The Last Party: Scenes From My Life with Norman Mailer
• Ian Smith – '
• Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont – Fashionable Nonsense
• Maria Todorova – Imagining the Balkans
• Kevin Warwick – March of the Machines

  Deaths

• January 19 – James Dickey, American poet and novelist
• February 3 – Bohumil Hrabal, Czech novelist
• February 18 – Emily Hahn, American journalist and author
• April 5 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet
• May 9 – Rina Lasnier, Canadian poet
• May 23 – Alison Adburgham, English social historian and journalist
• June 8 – George Turner, Australian novelist and critic
• July 26 – Joseph Henry Reason, American librarian
• August 2 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist
• August 27 – Johannes Edfelt, Swedish poet, translator and critic
• October 14 – Harold Robbins, American novelist
• October 16 – James A. Michener, American novelist and historian
• November 6 – Leon Forrest, African American novelist and essayist
• November 30 – Kathy Acker, American novelist and poet

  Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo
• Europe Theatre Prize: Robert Wilson
• Camões Prize: Pepetela

  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
• Miles Franklin Award: David Foster, The Glade Within the Grove

  Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award: Rachel Rose
• 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.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Anne Mullens, Timely Death

  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

  Spain

• Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Guillermo Cabrera Infante

  United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Tim Bowler, River Boy
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: R. F. Foster, William Butler Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 – The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914
• Cholmondeley Award: Alison Brackenbury, Gillian Clarke, Tony Curtis, Anne Stevenson
• Eric Gregory Award: Matthew Clegg, Sarah Corbett, Polly Clark, Tim Kendall, 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
• Hugo Award: Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars
• 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 –
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Lisel Mueller: Alive Together: New and Selected Poems
• Wallace Stevens Award: Anthony Hecht
• Whiting Awards:

  Elsewhere

• International Dublin Literary Award: Javier Marías, A Heart So White
• Premio Nadal: Carlos Cañeque, Quién