2003 in literature

Events

• February 12 – An invitation from the First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, for some poets to attend a conference at the White House is postponed when one of them, Sam Hamill, organizes a "Poets Against the War" group for poetry readings across the United States on the same date.
• March – The University of Mosul library is damaged and looted during the Iraq War, but many volumes are removed for protection by staff.
• April 14 – The Iraq National Library and Archive is burned down during the Battle of Baghdad.
• October – Nicholas Hytner succeeds Sir Trevor Nunn as artistic director of London's Royal National Theatre.
• November 7 – UNESCO places among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity wayang kulit, a shadow puppet theatre and best known of the Indonesian wayang.

  New books

Fiction

• Peter Ackroyd – The Clerkenwell Tales
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Purple Hibiscus
• Mitch Albom – The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Monica Ali – Brick Lane
• Martin Amis – Yellow Dog
• Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake
• Paul Auster – Oracle Night
• Max Barry – Jennifer Government
• Greg Bear – Darwin's Children
• Frédéric Beigbeder – Windows on the World
• Hilari Bell – Fall of a Kingdom
• Thomas Berger – Best Friends
• Giles Blunt – The Delicate Storm
• Frank Brennan – Tampering with Asylum
• Dan Brown – The Da Vinci Code
• Angus Peter Campbell – An Oidhche Mus Do Sheol Sinn
• Lars Saabye Christensen – Maskeblomstfamilien
• Paulo Coelho – Eleven Minutes
• J. M. Coetzee – Elizabeth Costello
• Deborah Joy Corey – The Skating Pond
• Bernard Cornwell
• *Sharpe's Havoc
• *Sharpe's Christmas
• *Heretic
• Douglas Coupland – Hey Nostradamus!
• Robert Crais – The Last Detective
• Julie E. Czerneda – Space, Inc.
• Jeffery Deaver – Twisted
• Don DeLillo – Cosmopolis
• Cory Doctorow
• *A Place So Foreign and Eight More
• *Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Gerard Donovan – Schopenhauer's Telescope
• Fernanda Eberstadt – The Furies
• Rodrigo Fresán – Jardines de Kensington
• Cornelia Funke – Inkheart
• Anna Gavalda – I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere
• William Gibson – Pattern Recognition
• Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen – '
• Jean-Christophe Grangé – L'Empire des loups
• John Grisham – The King of Torts
• Margaret Peterson Haddix – Among the Barons
• Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Pete Hamill – Forever
• Joanne Harris – Holy Fools
• Victor Heck – The Asylum
• *Vol 2 – The Violent Ward
• *Vol 3 – The Quiet Ward
• Jennifer Haigh – Mrs. Kimble
• Zoë Heller – Notes on a Scandal
• Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
• Michel Houellebecq – Lanzarote
• Alan Judd – The Kaiser's Last Kiss
• N. M. Kelby – Theater of the Stars: A Novel of Physics and Memory
• Thomas Keneally – The Tyrant's Novel
• Greg Keyes – The Final Prophecy
• Stephen King – Wolves of the Calla
• Dean R. Koontz – The Face
• Jhumpa Lahiri – The Namesake
• Dennis Lehane – Shutter Island
• Jonathan Lethem – The Fortress of Solitude
• James Luceno – The Unifying Force
• Steve Martini – The Arraignment
• Magnus Mills – The Scheme for Full Employment
• Paul Murray – An Evening of Long Goodbyes
• Julie Myerson – Something Might Happen
• Andrew Neiderman – The Baby Squad
• Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler's Wife
• Garth Nix – Mister Monday
• Chuck Palahniuk – Diary
• Christopher Paolini – Eragon
• Carolyn Parkhurst – The Dogs of Babel
• Per Petterson – Out Stealing Horses
• DBC Pierre – Vernon God Little
• Terry Pratchett
• *Monstrous Regiment
• *The Wee Free Men
• Jean Raspail – Les Royaumes de Borée
• Matthew Reilly – Scarecrow
• Nina Revoyr – Southland
• Tom Robbins – Villa Incognito
• J. Jill Robinson – Residual Desire
• Nick Sagan – Idlewild
• Matthew Sharpe – The Sleeping Father
• Michael Slade – Bed of Nails
• Wilbur Smith – Blue Horizon
• Olen Steinhauer – The Bridge of Sighs
• Neal Stephenson – Quicksilver
• Matthew Stover – Shatterpoint
• Anthony Swofford – Jarhead
• Miguel Sousa Tavares – Equador
• Adam Thirlwell – Politics
• Akira Toriyama – Toccio the Angel
• Sergio Troncoso – The Nature of Truth
• Andrew Vachss – The Getaway Man
• Mario Vargas Llosa – The Way to Paradise
• Jo Walton – Tooth and Claw
• Irvine Welsh – Porno
• Sean Williams and Shane Dix
• *'
• *'
• *'
• Tobias Wolff – Old School
• Roger Zelazny – Manna from Heaven''

  Children and young people

• Atsuko Asano – No. 6
• Cressida Cowell – How to Train Your Dragon
• Elizabeth Laird – The Garbage King
• Jim Murphy – An American Plague: the true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793
• Jenny Nimmo – Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
• Tyne O'Connell – Pulling Princes
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Lemony Snicket – The Slippery Slope
• Dugald Steer –
• Ann Turnbull – No Shame, No Fear
• Jacqueline Wilson – Girls in Tears
• Kay Winters – Voices of Ancient Egypt
• Yang Hongying – Four Troublemakers

  Drama

• Jordi Galceran – El mètode Grönholm
• Richard Greenberg – The Violet Hour
• David Hare – The Permanent Way
• Kwame Kwei-Armah – Elmina's Kitchen
• Lynn Nottage – Intimate Apparel
• Mark O'Rowe – Crestfall
• Abhi Subedi – Agniko Katha

  Poetry

• Lavinia Greenlaw – Minsk
• Pope John Paul II – Roman Triptych. Meditations
• Dean Kalimniou – Kipos Esokleistos

  Non–fiction

• Banglapedia – National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
• Neal Bascomb – '
• Patricia Brown – A League Of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls
• Andrea Curtis – Into the Blue
• Gerina Dunwich – Dunwich's Guide to Gemstone Sorcery
• Marc Ferro – Le Livre noir du colonialisme
• John Fowles – The Journals – Volume 1
• Anna Funder – Stasiland
• Mattias Gardell – Gods of the Blood
• A. C. Grayling – What Is Good?: The Search for the Best Way to Live
• Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
• Don Miller – Blue Like Jazz
• Michael Moore – Dude, Where's My Country?
• Azar Nafisi – Reading Lolita in Tehran
• Alanna Nash – The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
• Daniel Okrent – '
• Chuck Palahniuk – '
• Rudy Ruiz – ¡ADELANTE!: una guía personal del éxito para usted y su familia
• Jane Smiley – Charles Dickens
• Clark Ashton Smith – Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
• David Starkey – Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
• Lynne McTaggart – The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
• Amy Tan – '
• Lynne Truss – Eats, Shoots & Leaves
• Penny Wolfson – Moonrise

  Deaths

• January 5 – Jean Kerr, American author and playwright
• January 21 – Paul Haines, American-born Canadian poet and songwriter
• February 16 – Aleksandar Tišma, Serbian novelist
• February 26 – Quentin Keynes, English explorer, writer and filmmaker
• March 11 – Brian Cleeve, English-born Irish writer and broadcaster
• March 12 – Howard Fast, American novelist
• March 14 – Lucian Boz, Romanian and Australian literary critic
• April 3 – Michael Kelly, American journalist
• April 7 – Cecile de Brunhoff, French children's writer
• June 21
• *George Axelrod, American dramatist and screenwriter
• *Leon Uris, American novelist
• July 6 – Kathleen Raine, English poet, scholar, and translator
• July 10 – Winston Graham, English novelist
• July 14 – Éva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer
• July 15 – Roberto Bolaño, Chilean-born fiction writer
• July 16 – Carol Shields, American-born Canadian novelist
• September 3 – Alan Dugan, American poet
• November 9 – Alan Davidson, Northern Irish historian and food writer
• December 12 – Fadwa Toukan, Palestinian poet

  Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: J. M. Coetzee

  Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Nicholas Angel, Drown Them in the Sea
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Emma Lew, Anything the Landlord Touches
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jill Jones, Screens Jets Heaven
• Miles Franklin Award: Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country

  Canada

• Giller Prize: M. G. Vassanji – The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
• See 2003 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of the winners of those awards.
• Griffin Poetry Prize: Margaret Avison, Concrete and Wild Carrot and Paul Muldoon, Moy sand and gravel
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Alison Watt, The Last Island

  United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
• Caine Prize for African Writing: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, "Weight of Whispers"
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light
• Cholmondeley Award: Ciarán Carson, Michael Donaghy, Lavinia Greenlaw, Jackie Kay
• Eric Gregory Award: Jen Hadfield, Zoe Brigley, Paul Batchelor, Olivia Cole, Sasha Dugdale, Anna Woodford
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 – The Power of Place
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew O'Hagan, Personality
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Valerie Martin, Property
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: U. A. Fanthorpe
• Whitbread Book of The Year Award: Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel

  United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: David Shumate, High Water Mark
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry: W. S. Merwin
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Julie Sheehan, "Brown-headed Cow Birds"
• Bollingen Prize for Poetry: Adrienne Rich
• Brittingham Prize in Poetry: Brian Teare, The Room Where I Was Born
• Compton Crook Award: Patricia Bray, Devlin's Luck
• Frost Medal: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
• Hugo Award: Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2003 Lambda Literary Awards
• National Book Award for Fiction: Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
• National Book Critics Circle Award: Edward P. Jones, The Known World
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Avi,
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Sabina Murray, The Caprices
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
• Wallace Stevens Award: Richard Wilbur
• Whiting Awards:

  Other

• Camões Prize: Rubem Fonseca
• International Dublin Literary Award: Orhan Pamuk My Name is Red
• Premio Nadal: Andrés Trapiello, Los amigos del crimen perfecto
• SAARC Literary Award: Tissa Abeysekara, Laxman Gaikwad

  In literature

• February 15 – 15 February 2003 anti-war protests in London, the setting of Ian McEwan's novel Saturday.