2004 in literature

Events

• January – The poet Jang Jin-sung, in trouble with the North Korean authorities, defects to South Korea.
• February 16 – Edwin Morgan becomes Scotland's first official national poet, the Scots Makar, appointed by the Scottish Parliament.
• May 23 – Seattle Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, opens to the public.
• June 1 – Controversy surrounds Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, when an 11-year-old fan of the story in Sasebo, Nagasaki, murders her classmate, 12-year-old Satomi Mitarai, in a way that mimics a scene from the story.
• October 14 – Edinburgh becomes UNESCO's first City of Literature.
• October 31 – Denoël in Paris publishes Irène Némirovsky's Suite française, consisting of two novellas, Tempête en juin and Dolce, written and set in 1940–1941, from a sequence left unfinished on the author's death in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.
• December 18 – The première of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's play Behzti at England's Birmingham Repertory Theatre is cancelled after violent protests by members of the Sikh community.

• Canada Reads selects Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing to be read across the nation.
• Kansas City Public Library's Community Bookshelf is built.
• The typeface Calibri, designed by Luc de Groot, is introduced.

  New books

Fiction

• Cecelia Ahern – PS, I Love You
• C. C. Allentini – Dead of Winter
• Germano Almeida – O mar na Lajinha
• John Ames – Wake Up Sir!
• R. Scott Bakker – The Darkness That Comes Before
• Blue Balliett – Chasing Vermeer
• Iain M. Banks – The Algebraist
• Steven Barnes – The Cestus Deception
• Alistair Beaton – A Planet for the President
• Thomas Berger – Adventures of the Artificial Woman
• Louis de Bernières – Birds Without Wings
• Roberto Bolaño – 2666
• T. C. Boyle – The Inner Circle
• Anthony Cartwright – The Afterglow
• Gennifer Choldenko – Al Capone Does My Shirts
• Kate Christensen – '
• Stephen Clarke – A Year in the Merde
• Susanna Clarke – Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
• Wendy Coakley-Thompson – Back to Life
• Allison Hedge Coke – Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
• Suzanne Collins – Gregor the Overlander
• J. J. Connolly – Layer Cake
• Afua Cooper – The Hanging of Angelique
• Bernard Cornwell
• *Sharpe's Escape
• *The Last Kingdom
• Douglas Coupland – Eleanor Rigby
• Stevie Davies – Kith & Kin
• L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter and Björn Nyberg – Sagas of Conan
• Michel Déon – Your Father's Room
• Cory Doctorow – Eastern Standard Tribe
• Ben Elton – Past Mortem
• Gustav Ernst – Grado. Süße Nacht
• Giorgio Faletti – Niente di vero tranne gli occhi
• Karen Joy Fowler – The Jane Austen Book Club
• Ge Fei – 人面桃花
• Robert Goddard – Play to the End
• Adrien Goetz – La Dormeuse de Naples
• Helon Habila – Waiting for an Angel
• Margaret Peterson Haddix – Among the Brave
• Elisabeth Harvor, All Times Have Been Modern
• Michael Helm – In the Place of Last Things
• Carl Hiaasen – Skinny Dip
• Alan Hollinghurst – The Line of Beauty
• Jiang Rong – Wolf Totem
• Cynthia Kadohata – Kira-Kira
• Mitsuyo Kakuta – Woman on the Other Shore
• Peg Kehret – Escaping the Giant Wave
• Thomas Keneally – The Tyrant's Novel
• Stephen King
• *'
• *'
• John Kiriamiti – My Life in Prison
• Karl Ove Knausgård – A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven
• László Krasznahorkai – Destruction and Sorrow Beneath the Heavens
• Thor Kunkel – Endstufe
• David Leavitt – The Body of Jonah Boyd
• Tanith Lee – Piratica
• David Lodge – Author, Author
• Andreï Makine – The Woman Who Waited
• Henning Mankell – Depths
• David Michaels – Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
• David Mitchell – Cloud Atlas
• Aka Morchiladze – Santa Esperanza
• Bharati Mukherjee – The Tree Bride
• Alice Munro – Runaway
• Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o – Mũrogi wa Kagogo
• Garth Nix – Grim Tuesday
• Cees Nooteboom – Lost Paradise
• Daniel Olivas – Devil Talk: Stories
• Linda Sue Park – When My Name Was Keoko
• Jodi Picoult – My Sister's Keeper
• Terry Pratchett
• *A Hat Full of Sky
• *Going Postal
• Michael Reaves and Steve Perry – ' and '
• Marilynne Robinson – Gilead
• Philip Roth – The Plot Against America
• Edward Rutherfurd – '
• Nick Sagan – Edenborn
• David Sherman and Dan Cragg – Jedi Trial
• Kyle Smith – Love Monkey
• David Southwell – Conspiracy Files
• Muriel Spark – The Finishing School
• Olen Steinhauer – The Confession
• V. S. Naipaul – Magic Seeds
• Neal Stephenson
• *The Confusion
• *The System of the World
• Sean Stewart – '
• Thomas Sullivan – Dust of Eden
• Michel Thaler – Le Train de Nulle Part
• Colm Tóibín – The Master
• Zlatko Topčić – Bare Skin
• Karen Traviss – '
• Jonathan Trigell – Boy A
• Andrew Vachss – Down Here
• Vivian Vande Velde – Heir Apparent
• Bob Weltlich – Crooked Zebra
• A. N. Wilson – My Name Is Legion
• Michael Winter – The Big Why
• Carlos Ruiz Zafon – The Shadow of the Wind
• Juli Zeh – Gaming Instinct
• Florian Zeller – La Fascination du pire

  Children and young people

• David Almond – Kate, the Cat and the Moon
• Mary Bartek – Funerals and Fly Fishing
• John Fardell – The Seven Professors of the Far North
• Mem Fox – Where Is the Green Sheep?
• Cornelia Funke – When Santa Fell to Earth
• Virginia Hamilton – Wee Winnie Witch's Skinny: An Original African American Scare Tale
• J. Patrick Lewis – The Stolen Smile
• Robert Muchamore – The Recruit
• Jenny Nimmo – Charlie Bone and the Blue Boa
• Lemony Snicket – The Grim Grotto
• Dugald Steer – ''

  Drama

• Alan Bennett – The History Boys
• Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti – Behzti
• Neil Brand – Stan
• Bryony Lavery – Frozen
• Brent Hartinger – Geography Club
• Louis Nowra – The Woman with Dog's Eyes
• John Patrick Shanley – Doubt
• Florian Zeller – L'Autre

  Poetry

• Seamus Heaney – Beacons of Bealtaine

  Non-fiction

• Steve Almond - Candyfreak
• Thomas P.M. Barnett – The Pentagon's New Map
• Ingmar and Ingrid Bergman and Maria von Rosen – Tre dagböcker
• T. Mike Childs – The Rocklopedia Fakebandica
• Richard A. Clarke – Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
• Jonathan Coe – Like A Fiery Elephant: The Story of B. S. Johnson
• Allison Hedge Coke – Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
• Anne Coleman – I'll Tell You a Secret
• Flora Fraser – Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III
• Leonie Frieda – Catherine de' Medici
• Sheila Hancock – '
• Gareth Stedman Jones – An End to Poverty?
• Pedro Lemebel – :es:Adiós mariquita linda|Adiós mariquita linda
• Doris Lessing - '
• Lawrence Lessig – Free Culture
• Mario Vargas Llosa – The Temptation of the Impossible
• Roger Lowenstein – Origins of the Crash
• Hugh Masekela – Still Grazing
• Predrag Miletić – Biciklom do Hilandara
• Farah Pahlavi – '
• Chuck Palahniuk – '
• Michael Palin – Himalaya
• Sethy Regenvanu – Laef blong mi
• Anita Roddick – Take it Personally: How globalization affects you and powerful ways to challenge it
• Miranda Seymour – '
• Owen Sheers – The Dust Diaries
• Rebecca Solnit – Hope in the Dark
• Ben Stein – Can America Survive? The Rage of the Left, The Truth, and What to Do About It
• Jon Stewart and writers of The Daily Show – '
• Milt Thomas – Cave of a Thousand Tales
• J. Maarten Troost – The Sex Lives of Cannibals
• United Kingdom Government – Delivering Security in a Changing World
• Francis Wheen – How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
• Alford A. Young Jr. – The Minds of Marginalized Black Men

  Deaths

• January 3 – Lillian Beckwith, English novelist
• January 4
• *Joan Aiken, English novelist and children's writer
• *Jeff Nuttall, English poet, artist and activist
• *John Toland, American author and historian
• January 10
• *Alexandra Ripley, American novelist
• * Spalding Gray, American writer and actor
• January 13 – Zeno Vendler, American philosopher and linguist
• January 14 – Jack Cady, American fantasy and horror novelist
• January 15
• *Alex Barris, Canadian actor and writer
• *Olivia Goldsmith, American novelist
• January 29
• *Janet Frame, New Zealand novelist, poet and short story writer
• *M. M. Kaye, Indian-born English novelist
• February 2 – Alan Bullock, English historian
• February 4 – Hilda Hilst, Brazilian poet, playwright and novelist
• February 5 – Frances Partridge, English diarist
• February 7 – Norman Thelwell, English cartoonist
• February 17 – Bruce Beaver, Australian poet and novelist
• February 27 – Paul Sweezy, American economist and editor
• February 28 – Daniel J. Boorstin, American historian
• February 29 – Jerome Lawrence, American playwright
• March 9 – Albert Mol, Dutch author, actor and dancer
• March 27 – Robert Merle, French novelist
• March 29 – Peter Ustinov, English actor, dramatist and memoirist
• March 30
• *Alistair Cooke, English-born American journalist and broadcaster
• *Dr Michael King OBE, New Zealand historian, author and biographer
• April 19
• *Norris McWhirter, English writer and activist
• *John Maynard Smith, English evolutionary biologist and writer
• April 25 – Thom Gunn, English poet
• April 26 – Hubert Selby, Jr., American author
• May 2 – Paul Guimard, French writer
• May 12
• *Syd Hoff, American author and illustrator
• *Alexander Skutch, American scientific writer and naturalist
• May 31 – Lionel Abrahams, South African novelist, poet and essayist
• July 1 – Peter Barnes, English playwright
• July 8 – Paula Danziger, American children's and young adult novelist
• August 8 – Farida Diouri, Moroccan novelist
• August 12 – Humayun Azad, Bangladeshi author, poet, scholar and linguist
• August 14 – Czesław Miłosz, Polish writer and Nobel laureate
• September 18 – Norman Cantor, Canadian historian
• September 24 – Françoise Sagan, French novelist
• September 28 – Mulk Raj Anand, Indian novelist in English
• October – Natalya Baranskaya, Russian short-story writer
• October 8 – Jacques Derrida, Algerian-born French literary critic
• October 13 – Bernice Rubens, Welsh-born novelist
• October 16
• *Vincent Brome, English biographer and novelist
• *Harold Perkin, English social historian
• October 20 – Anthony Hecht, American poet
• November 9 – Stieg Larsson, Swedish journalist and crime novelist
• November 24 – Arthur Hailey, Canadian novelist
• December 2 – Mona Van Duyn, American poet
• December 8 – Jackson Mac Low, American poet
• December 12 – Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist
• December 18 – Anthony Sampson, British journalist and biographer
• December 28 – Susan Sontag, American novelist

  Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Elfriede Jelinek
• Camões Prize: Agustina Bessa-Luís

  Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Julienne van Loon, Road Story
• Victorian Premier's Literary Award C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Judith Beveridge, Wolf Notes
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Pam Brown, Dear Deliria: New & Selected Poems
• Mary Gilmore Prize: David McCooey, Blister Pack; Michael Brennan, Imageless World
• Miles Franklin Award: Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
• Victorian Premier's Literary Award Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction: Annamarie Jagose, Slow Water

  Canada

• Giller Prize: Alice Munro, Runaway
• Governor General's Awards: See 2004 Governor General's Awards
• Griffin Poetry Prize: Anne Simpson, Loop and August Kleinzahler, The Strange Hours Travelers Keep
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Andrea Curtis, Into the Blue

  United Kingdom

• Caine Prize for African Writing: Brian Chikwava, "Seventh Street Alchemy"
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Frank Cottrell Boyce, Millions
• Cholmondeley Award: John Agard, Ruth Padel Lawrence Sail, Eva Salzman
• Eric Gregory Award: Nick Laird, Elizabeth Manuel, Abi Curtis, Sophie Levy, Saradha Soobrayen
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: David Peace, GB84
• Man Booker Prize: Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Andrea Levy, Small Island
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Hugo Williams
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Andrea Levy, Small Island

  United States

• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Henry Taylor
• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Aaron Smith, Blue on Blue Ground
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Jeremy Glazier, "Conversations with the Sidereal Messenger"
• Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: B.H. Fairchild, Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
• Brittingham Prize in Poetry: John Brehm, Sea of Faith
• Compton Crook Award: E. E. Knight, Way of the Wolf
• Frost Medal: Richard Howard
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2004 Lambda Literary Awards.
• National Book Award for Fiction: to The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
• National Book Critics Circle Award: to Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to by John Updike
• Wallace Stevens Award: Mark Strand
• Whiting Awards:

  Elsewhere

• Premio Nadal: Antonio Soler, El camino de los ingleses