2020 in literature

Events

• April 14 – Bookshops are among the first few premises permitted to reopen on relaxation of restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
• May 26–July 10 – J. K. Rowling releases her new fairy tale The Ickabog in free online instalments during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
• June 25 – Louisa May Alcott's unfinished "Aunt Nellie's Story" is first published, in The Strand Magazine.

  New books

Fiction

• Kaie Kellough - Dominoes at the Crossroads
• William Gibson - Agency
• Lisa Robertson - The Baudelaire Fractal
• Thomas King - Obsidian
• Marjorie Celona - How a Woman Becomes a Lake
• Shani Mootoo - Polar Vortex
• Hilary Mantel – The Mirror and the Light
• David Bergen - Here the Dark
• Terry Watada - The Mysterious Dreams of the Dead
• Emily St. John Mandel - The Glass Hotel
• Maggie O'Farrell – Hamnet
• Katrina Onstad - Stay Where I Can See You
• Marianne Apostolides - I Can't Get You Out of My Mind
• Deni Ellis Béchard - A Song from Faraway
• Vivek Shraya - The Subtweet
• Souvankham Thammavongsa - How to Pronounce Knife
• Cordelia Strube - Misconduct of the Heart
• Lisa Bird-Wilson - Probably Ruby
• Maria Mutch - Molly Falls to Earth
• Kate Pullinger - Forest Green
• Tim Wynne-Jones - War at the Snow White Motel and Other Stories
• John Gould - The End of Me
• Gil Adamson - Ridgerunner
• Clifford Jackman - The Braver Thing
• Pasha Malla - Kill the Mall
• Aislinn Hunter - The Certainties
• Eva Crocker - All I Ask
• Dianne Warren - The Diamond House
• Becky Albertalli – Love, Creekwood
• Evan Winter - The Fires of Vengeance
• Farzana Doctor - Seven
• André Alexis - The Night Piece
• Zoe Sugg and Amy McCulloch –

  Children and young people

• J. K. Rowling – The Ickabog
• Jacqueline Wilson – Love Frankie

  Poetry

Drama

Non-fiction

• Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig – A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America
• Mary Trump Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man

  Biography and memoirs

Deaths

• January 7 – Elizabeth Wurtzel, 52, American author
• January 9 – Chukwuemeka Ike, 88, Nigerian writer
• January 12 – Roger Scruton, 75, English philosopher and writer
• January 16 – Christopher Tolkien, 95, British academic and editor
• January 17 – Charles Carrère, 91, Senegalese poet.
• January 23 – Armando Uribe, 86, Chilean writer
• January 30 – Jörn Donner, 86, Finland-Swedish writer, film director and politician.
• January 31 – Mary Higgins Clark, 92, American best-selling author, known as the Queen of Suspense
• February 3 – George Steiner, 90, French-American literary critic and essayist
• February 4 – Kamau Brathwaite, 89, Barbadian poet and academic
• February 12 – Christie Blatchford, 68, Canadian newspaper columnist, journalist, writer and broadcaster
• February 17 – Charles Portis, 86, American author
• February 22 – Kiki Dimoula, 88, Greek poet
• February 24 – Clive Cussler, 88, American adventure novelist and underwater explorer, founder of the NUMA
• March 13 – Yang Mu, 79, Taiwanese poet and essayist
• March 24 – Terrence McNally, 81, American playwright, screenwriter, and librettist
• March 30 – Tomie dePaola, American author and illustrator
• April 1 – Bruce Dawe, 90, Australian poet
• April 2 – Patricia Bosworth, 86, Amrerican biographer, journalist, and memoirist
• April 6 – Jean Little, 88, Canadian children's fiction author
• April 16 – Luis Sepúlveda, 70, Chilean author and journalist
• April 25 – Per Olov Enquist, 85, Swedish author
• May 4 – Michael McClure, 87, American poet and writer
• May 12 – Carolyn Reidy, 71, American publisher, CEO of Simon & Schuster, heart attack
• May 27 – Larry Kramer, 84, American playwright and LGBT rights activist
• June 2 – Hiber Conteris, 86, Uruguayan literary critic, writer and playwright
• July 7 – Elizabeth Harrower, 92, Australian novelist

  Awards

• Akutagawa Prize:
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award:
• Baillie Gifford Prize:
• Booker Prize: See:2020 Booker Prize
• Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year:
• Caine Prize for African Writing:
• Camões Prize:
• Carnegie Medal: Anthony McGowan, Lark
• Costa Book Awards:
• Danuta Gleed Literary Award:
• David Cohen Prize:
• Desmond Elliott Prize:
• Dylan Thomas Prize: Bryan Washington, Lot
• Folio Prize: Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive
• German Book Prize:
• Goldsmiths Prize:
• Gordon Burn Prize:
• Governor General's Award for English-language fiction:
• Governor General's Award for French-language fiction:
• Governor General's Awards, other categories: See 2020 Governor General's Awards
• Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française:
• Hugo Award for Best Novel:
• International Booker Prize:
• International Dublin Literary Award:
• International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Abdelouahab Aissaoui, The Spartan Court
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction:
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography:
• Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award:
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 32nd Lambda Literary Awards.
• Legion of Honour, Chevalier:
• Miguel de Cervantes Prize:
• Miles Franklin Award:
• National Biography Award:
• National Book Award for Fiction:
• National Book Critics Circle Award:
• Newbery Medal: Jerry Craft, New Kid
• Nike Award:
• Nobel Prize in Literature:
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction:
• PEN Center USA 2018 Fiction Award:
• Premio Planeta de Novela:
• Premio Strega:
• Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing:
• Prix Goncourt:
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction:
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry:
• Queen's Birthday Honours
• RBC Taylor Prize: Mark Bourrie, Bush Runner
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize:
• Russian Booker Prize:
• SAARC Literary Award:
• Scotiabank Giller Prize:
• Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings:
• Walter Scott Prize: Christine Dwyer Hickey, The Narrow Land
• Whiting Awards:
• Women's Prize for Fiction:
• W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction:
• Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award: