2014 in literature

Events

• January – Parts of two previously unknown poems by the female Greek poet Sappho are discovered on ancient papyrus. This is reported by several news sources by the end of the month.
• January 18 – The first books are transferred from the old to the new National Library of Latvia in Riga.
• March 6 – Joseph Boyden's novel The Orenda wins the 2014 edition of Canada Reads.
• April 24 – Writers including Mark Haddon and Mary Beard join a campaign against a ban on sending books to U.K. prison inmates.
• May 22 – J. R. R. Tolkien's 1926 translation of Beowulf is first published..
• June 10 – As part of a Northern Iraq offensive, ISIL and aligned Salafi jihadist forces take Mosul, leading to extensive book burning at its libraries, as part of the destruction of cultural heritage by ISIL.
• November 25 – Discovery of a previously unknown copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays in the public library at Saint-Omer in northern France is announced.

  Anniversaries

• 28 January – On this day 75 years ago, W. B. Yeats died in Menton, France.
• 5 February – William Burroughs was born in 1914
• 21 February – Christopher Marlowe's 450th birthday celebrated
• 1 March – On this day 100 years ago, Ralph Ellison was born.
• 9 March – Charles Bukowski died 20 years ago today.
• 10 March – On this day 50 years ago, John Updike receives the National Book Award for The Centaur.
• 31 March – 100th anniversary of the birth of the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz in 1914.
• 4 April – Marguerite Duras was born in 1914
• 14 April – On this day 75 years ago, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published.
• 16 April – Ralph Ellison dies on this date 20 years ago in 1994.
• 18 April – On this day 40 years ago the first printing of J. M. Coetzee's debut novel Dusklands appeared in hardback.
• 23 April – It is assumed that William Shakespeare was born on this day 450 years ago.
• 26 April – The centenary of Bernard Malamud's birth.
• May – The 100th anniversary of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.
• 16 June – This year's Bloomsday celebration will also mark the 100th anniversary of the publication of Joyce's Dubliners.
• 21 September – the 50th anniversary of the publication of Herzog by Saul Bellow, the second of his three National Book Award-winning novels.
• 7 July – Sir Walter Scott's debut novel, Waverley, was published 200 years ago today.
• 22 September – Alain-Fournier died in action in northern France 100 years ago today, just a year after the publication of his only novel, Le Grand Meaulnes.
• 27 October – Dylan Thomas was born a hundred years ago.
• 18 November – Margaret Atwood celebrates her 75th birthday today.
• 2 December – The Marquis de Sade died 200 years ago today.

  New books

Fiction

• Belinda Alexandra – Sapphire Skies
• Jacob M. Appel – Scouting for the Reaper
• Kate Atkinson – A God in Ruins
• Margaret Atwood – Stone Mattress – Nine Tales
• Bandi – The Accusation
• Natalie Baszile – Queen Sugar
• Pierce Brown – Red Rising
• Jessie Burton – The Miniaturist
• Ceridwen Dovey – Only the Animals
• David Grossman – A Horse Walks into a Bar: A novel
• John Hornor Jacobs – The Incorruptibles
• Marlon James – A Brief History of Seven Killings
• Stephen King
• *Mr. Mercedes
• *Revival
• Thomas King – The Back of the Turtle
• Herman Koch – Geachte heer M.
• Laila Lalami – The Moor's Account
• S. E. Lister – Hideous Creatures
• Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi – Kintu
• Javier Marías – Así empieza lo malo
• Sean Michaels – Us Conductors
• Karen Miller – The Falcon Throne
• Haruki Murakami – Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
• Rick Riordan – The Blood of Olympus
• Rudy Ruiz – Seven for the Revolution
• Samanta Schweblin – Distancia de rescate
• Roger Scruton – Notes from Underground
• Akhil Sharma – Family Life
• Joss Sheldon – Involution & Evolution
• Leïla Slimani – Dans le jardin de l'ogre
• Ali Smith – How to Be Both
• Miriam Toews – All My Puny Sorrows
• Niall Williams – History of the Rain

  Children and young people

• Chris Van Allsburg – The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie
• David Almond
• *A Song for Ella Grey
• *The Tightrope Walkers
• Connah Brecon – There's This Thing
• A. F. Harrold – The Imaginary
• John Hornor Jacobs – The Shibboleth
• J. Patrick Lewis – Harlem Hellfighters
• Katherine Rundell – Rooftoppers
• Jon Scieszka – Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor
• R. A. Spratt – Friday Barnes
• Maggie Stiefvater – Blue Lily, Lily Blue
• Zoe Sugg – Girl Online

  Drama

• Mike Bartlett – King Charles III

  Poetry

• Rosemary Tonks – Bedouin of the London Evening

  Non-fiction

• Alan Cumming – Not My Father's Son
• Lindsay David – '
• Mark Felton – Zero Night
• William H. Frey – Diversity Explosion
• Michael Gross – House of Outrageous Fortune'
• Christophe Guilluy – La France périphérique
• Madhu Kishwar – Modi, Muslims and Media: Voices from Narendra Modi's Gujarat
• Naomi Klein – This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate
• Philip Lymbery and Isabel Oakeshott – Farmageddon
• Helen Macdonald – H is for Hawk
• Rajiv Malhotra – Indra's Net
• Lucy Mangan – Inside Charlie's Chocolate Factory
• L. A. Paul – Transformative Experience
• Winifred Phillips – A Composer's Guide to Game Music
• Claudia Rankine – '
• Roger Scruton
• *How to Be a Conservative
• *The Soul of the World''

  Deaths

• January 4 – Jean Metellus, Haitian neurologist, author, poet, and playwright
• January 14 – Juan Gelman, Argentine poet, 83
• January 28 – Nigel Jenkins, Welsh poet, journalist, and geographer, 64
• January 29 – Hashem Shabani, Iranian poet, 32,
• February 18 – Mavis Gallant, Canadian writer of short stories, 91
• March 2 – Justin Kaplan, American writer, editor and biographer, 88
• March 18 – Catherine Obianuju Acholonu, Nigerian researcher and poet,
• April 5 – Peter Matthiessen, American novelist, naturalist and wilderness writer, 86
• April 10
• *Doris Pilkington Garimara, Aboriginal novelist, 77
• *Sue Townsend, English comic novelist and playwright, 68
• April 15 – Rosemary Tonks, English poet, prose writer, and children's writer
• April 17 – Gabriel García Márquez, Colombian Nobel laureate, 87
• April 20 – Alistair MacLeod, Canadian writer, 77
• April 24 – Tadeusz Różewicz, Polish poet, dramatist and writer, 92
• May 6 – Farley Mowat, Canadian author and environmentalist, 92
• May 21 – Ruth Guimarães, Afro-Brazilian classicist, fiction writer and poet, 93
• May 28
• *Maya Angelou, American author, poet and civil rights activist, 86
• *Oscar Dystel, American paperback publisher, 101.
• June 19 – Josephine Pullein-Thompson, English children's novelist, 90
• June 22 – Felix Dennis, English publisher and poet, 67
• June 23 – Nancy Garden, American author
• June 25 – Ana María Matute, Spanish writer, 88
• June 29 – Dermot Healy, Irish poet, playwright, fiction writer and memoirist. 66
• July 4 – C. J. Henderson, American author and critic, 62
• July 13 – Nadine Gordimer, South African writer, anti-apartheid activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 90
• July 20 – Thomas Berger, American writer, 93
• August 1 – Jan Roar Leikvoll, Norwegian novelist, 40
• August 2
• *Billie Letts, American novelist, 73
• *James Thompson, American-Finnish author, 49
• September 4
• *Orunamamu, American-Canadian author, story-teller and educator, 93
• *Edgar Steele, American lawyer and author, 69
• September 21 – Linda Griffiths, Canadian playwright, 60
• September 24 – Hugh C. Rae, Scottish novelist, 79
• September 28 – Dannie Abse, Welsh poet and physician, 91
• November 27 – P. D. James, English crime writer, 94
• November 29 – Mark Strand, Canadian-born American poet and writer, United States Poet Laureate, 80
• November 30
• *Radwa Ashour, Egyptian writer and academic, 68
• *Kent Haruf, American novelist, 71
• December 3 – Vicente Leñero, Mexican writer and journalist, 81
• December 12 – Norman Bridwell, American author and illustrator, 86
• December 24 – Lee Israel, American biographer and literary forger, 75

  Awards

• Akutagawa Prize: Hiroko Oyamada for Ana and Tomoka Shibasaki for Haru No Niwa
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
• Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
• Caine Prize for African Writing: Okwiri Oduor, "My Father's Head"
• Camões Prize: Alberto da Costa e Silva
• Costa Book of the Year: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
• Danuta Gleed Literary Award: Paul Carlucci, The Secret Life of Fission
• Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Tamai Kobayashi
• Desmond Elliott Prize: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
• DSC Prize for South Asian Literature: Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer by Cyrus Mistry
• Dylan Thomas Prize: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris
• Folio Prize: by George Saunders
• German Book Prize: Kruso by Lutz Seiler
• Goldsmiths Prize: How to Be Both by Ali Smith
• Gordon Burn Prize: The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth
• Governor General's Award for English-language fiction: Thomas King, The Back of the Turtle
• Governor General's Award for French-language fiction: Andrée A. Michaud, Bondrée
• Governor General's Awards, other categories: See 2014 Governor General's Awards.
• Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française: Adrien Bosc, for Constellation
• International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi
• International Dublin Literary Award: Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The Sound of Things Falling
• Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 26th Lambda Literary Awards
• Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award: Steve Erickson
• Man Booker Prize: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan
• Miles Franklin Award: All The Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld
• National Biography Award: The Ambitions of Jane Franklin: Victorian Lady Adventurer by Alison Alexander
• National Book Award for Fiction: to Redeployment by Phil Klay
• Nobel Prize in Literature: to Patrick Modiano
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows
• SAARC Literary Award: Tarannum Riyaz
• Samuel Johnson Prize: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
• Scotiabank Giller Prize: Sean Michaels, Us Conductors
• Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings: Ko Un
• Walter Scott Prize: An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris
• Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award: Charles Simic