2017 in literature

Events

• March – Emulating Kerouac's On the Road, Ross Goodwin drives from New York to New Orleans with an artificial intelligence device in a laptop hooked up to various sensors, whose output it turns into words printed on rolls of thermal paper; the result is published unedited as 1 the Road in 2018.
• August – The Chinese crime novelist Liu Yongbiao is arrested and eventually sentenced to death for four murders committed 22 years before.
• August 30 – A hard disk drive containing unfinished work by the English comic fantasy novelist Sir Terry Pratchett is crushed by a steamroller on his instructions.
• December – Kristen Roupenian's short story "Cat Person" is published in The New Yorker and becomes a viral phenomenon online, with more than 2.6 million hits.

  Anniversaries

• Tercentenary of the Aberbaijani poet Molla Panah Vagif's birth in 1717
• 600th anniversary of the death of the Turkic mystical poet Imadaddin Nasimi in 1417
• March 19 – Bicentenary of the Slovak writer Jozef Miloslav Hurban's birth
• May 8 – The American novelist Thomas Pynchon turns 80.
• June 18 – Centenary of the death of the Romanian literary critic and former prime minister Titu Maiorescu
• June 26 – 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
• July 12 – 200th birthday of Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden
• July 14 – Bicentenary of the early French salonnière Madame de Staël's death
• July 18 – Bicentenary of the novelist Jane Austen's death in 1817
• Nov 30 – 350th anniversary of the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift's birth in 1667
• December 4 – Bicentenary of the birth of Nikoloz Baratashvili's in 1817, who introduced European style into Georgian literature.

  New books

Fiction

• Ayobami Adebayo – Stay With Me
• Paul Auster – 4 3 2 1
• Brunonia Barry - '
• Darcey Bell – A Simple Favor
• Dan Brown – Origin
• Peter Carey – A Long Way From Home
• J. M. Coetzee – The Schooldays of Jesus
• Curtis Dawkins – The Graybar Hotel
• Didier Decoin – :fr:Le bureau des jardins et des étangs|Le bureau des jardins et des étangs
• Steve Erickson – Shadowbahn
• :fr:Christine Féret-Fleury|Christine Féret-Fleury – La fille qui lisait dans le Métro
• Karl Geary – Montpelier Parade
• John Grisham – Camino Island
• Mohsin Hamid – Exit West
• Alan Hollinghurst – The Sparsholt Affair
• Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
• N. K. Jemisin – The Stone Sky
• Lisa Jewell – Then She Was Gone
• The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu – 2023
• Ian McDonald – '
• Jon McGregor – Reservoir 13
• Claude McKay – Amiable with Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem
• Robert Menasse – Die Hauptstadt
• Denise Mina – The Long Drop
• Fiona Mozley – Elmet
• Neel Mukherjee – A State of Freedom
• Timothy Ogene – The Day Ends Like Any Day
• Tim Pears – The Horseman
• Gwendoline Riley – First Love
• Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends
• George Saunders – Lincoln in the Bardo
• Rachel Seiffert – A Boy in Winter
• Kamila Shamsie – Home Fire
• Joss Sheldon – Money Power Love
• Elizabeth Strout – Anything is Possible
• J. R. R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien – Beren and Lúthien
• Zlatko Topčić – zavrsna.rijec & Dagmar
• Éric Vuillard – The Order of the Day
• Jesmyn Ward – Sing, Unburied, Sing
• Sarah Winman – Tin Man
• Kathleen Winter – Lost in September

  Children and young people

• Sarah Crossan – Moonrise
• Lissa Evans – Wed Wabbit
• Connie Glynn – Undercover Princess
• Kiran Millwood Hargrave – The Island at the End of Everything
• Amanda Hocking – Freeks
• Philip Pullman – La Belle Sauvage, first volume in The Book of Dust trilogy
• Katherine Rundell – The Explorer
• Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give
• Jacqueline Wilson – Wave Me Goodbye

  Poetry

• Helen Dunmore – Inside the Wave
• Robert Macfarlane – The Lost Words: A Spell Book
• Sinéad Morrissey – On Balance

  Drama

• Jez Butterworth – The Ferryman
• Inua Ellams – Barber Shop Chronicles

  Non-fiction

• Howard W. French – Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power
• David Grann – Killers of the Flower Moon
• Michel Houellebecq – En présence de Schopenhauer
• Christine Hyung-Oak Lee – Tell Me Everything You Don’t Remember
• Obi Kaufmann – The California Field Atlas
• Jamie Oliver – 5 Ingredients – Quick and Easy Food
• Walter Scheidel – The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
• Matt Taibbi – Insane Clown President

  Biography and memoirs

• Craig Brown – Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret
• Richard Ford – Between Them: Remembering My Parents
• Adam Kay – This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor
• Caroline Moorehead – A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Rossellis and the Fight Against Mussolini
• Rebecca Stott – In the Days of Rain: a daughter, a father, a cult
• Stephen Westaby – Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table
• Xiaolu Guo – Once Upon a Time in the East

  Deaths

• January 2 – John Berger, English novelist, painter, art critic and poet, 90
• January 12 – William Peter Blatty, American author, 89
• January 25:
• *Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian novelist and children's writer, 72
• *Harry Mathews, American novelist and poet, 86
• January 29 – Howard Frank Mosher, American novelist, 74
• January 30 - Teresa Amy, Uruguayan poet and translator, 66
• February 1 – William Melvin Kelley, African-American novelist, 79
• February 8 – Tom Raworth, English poet, 78
• March 10 – Robert James Waller, American novelist, 77
• March 16 – Torgny Lindgren, Swedish writer, 78
• March 17 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright, Nobel Laureate in 1992, 87
• April 1 – Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet, 84
• May 1:
• *Anatoly Aleksin, Russian writer and poet, 92
• *Mohamed Talbi, Tunisian historian, 95
• May 24 – Denis Johnson, American poet, novelist, and short story writer, 67.
• June 2
• *Jaroslav Kořán, Czech translator, writer and politician, 77
• *Barrie Pettman, English author, publisher and philanthropist, 73
• *S. Abdul Rahman, Indian poet, 79
• June 4
• *Juan Goytisolo, Spanish essayist, poet and novelist, 86
• *Jack Trout, American marketer and author, 82
• June 5
• *Helen Dunmore, English poet, novelist and children's writer, 64
• *Anna Jókai, Hungarian writer, 84
• June 8 – Naseem Khan, British journalist, 77
• June 12 – C. Narayana Reddy, Indian poet and writer, Jnanpith Awardee, 85
• June 27 – Michael Bond, English author, 91
• June 28 – Bruce Stewart, New Zealand author and playwright, 80
• July 2
• *Tony Bianchi, Welsh-language author, 65
• *Jack Collom, American poet, essayist and poetry teacher, 85
• *Abiola Irele, Nigerian literary critic, 81
• *Fay Zwicky, Australian poet, 83
• July 5 – Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian poet, 63
• July 9
• *Miep Diekmann, Dutch writer of children's literature, 92
• *Anton Nossik, Russian writer and internet entrepreneur, 51
• September 23 – Harvey Jacobs, American author, 87
• November 20 - Amir Hamed, Uruguayan writer, essayist and translator, 55
• December 28 – Sue Grafton, American mystery author, 77

  Awards

• Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction: Naomi Alderman for The Power
• Baillie Gifford Prize: David France for How to Survive a Plague
• Booker Prize: George Saunders for Lincoln in the Bardo
• Caine Prize for African Writing: Bushra Elfadil, "The Story of the Girl Whose Bird Flew Away"
• Camões Prize: Manuel Alegre
• Costa Book Awards: Helen Dunmore for Inside the Wave
• Danuta Gleed Literary Award: Kris Bertin, Bad Things Happen
• David Cohen Prize: Tom Stoppard
• Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Kai Cheng Thom
• Desmond Elliott Prize: Francis Spufford, Golden Hill
• DSC Prize for South Asian Literature:
• Dylan Thomas Prize: Fiona McFarlane for The High Places
• Folio Prize: Hisham Matar for The Return
• German Book Prize: Robert Menasse for Die Hauptstadt
• Goldsmiths Prize: Nicola Barker for Hppy
• Gordon Burn Prize: Denise Mina for The Long Drop
• Governor General's Award for English-language fiction: Joel Thomas Hynes, We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night
• Governor General's Award for French-language fiction: Christian Guay-Poliquin, Le Poids de la neige
• Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française:
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: N. K. Jemisin for The Obelisk Gate
• International Booker Prize: David Grossman for A Horse Walks Into a Bar
• International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Mohammed Hasan Alwan for A Small Death
• International Dublin Literary Award: José Eduardo Agualusa for A General Theory of Oblivion
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction:
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography:
• Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award:
• Lambda Literary Awards: Various categories, see 29th Lambda Literary Awards
• Miguel de Cervantes Prize:
• Miles Franklin Award: Josephine Wilson for Extinctions
• National Biography Award:
• National Book Award for Fiction:
• National Book Critics Circle Award:
• Newdigate Prize: Dominic Hand
• Nike Award:
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Kazuo Ishiguro
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Imbolo Mbue for Behold the Dreamers
• PEN Center USA 2016 Fiction Award:
• Premio Planeta de Novela:
• Premio Strega:
• Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing:
• Prix Goncourt:
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Tyehimba Jess for Olio
• RBC Taylor Prize: Ross King for Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: David Chariandy, Brother
• Russian Booker Prize:
• Scotiabank Giller Prize: Michael Redhill, Bellevue Square
• Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings:
• Walter Scott Prize: Sebastian Barry for Days Without End''
• W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction:
• Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award: Breyten Breytenbach