1996 in literature

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This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 1996.

Events

• July 1 – German orthography reform of 1996 agreed internationally.
• July 8 – Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, and 30 other books, are removed from an English reading list in Lindale, Texas, because they "conflicted with the values of the community".
• July 11 – At the request of Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Zephaniah hosts the president's Two Nations Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.
• October 3 – First performance of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.
• Unknown dates
  • In the UK, the first Orange Prize for Fiction for female novelists goes to Helen Dunmore for A Spell of Winter.
  • Peter O'Donnell publishes Cobra Trap, his final volume featuring Modesty Blaise. The first appeared in 1965.
  • Margaret Mitchell's lost first novella, Lost Laysen, is published 80 years after it was written.
  • Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's Romance Writings, including her novel Princess Docile, are first published 234 years after her death.

New books

Fiction

• Stephen Ambrose – Undaunted Courage
• Anonymous (Joe Klein) – Primary Colors: a novel of politics
• Jeffrey Archer – The Fourth Estate
• Margaret Atwood – Alias Grace
• Beryl Bainbridge – Every Man for Himself
• David Baldacci – Absolute Power
• Iain M. Banks – Excession
• Thomas Berger – Suspects
• Harold Bloom – Omens of Millennium: The Gnosis of Angels, Dreams, and Resurrection
• Dionne Brand – In Another Place, Not Here
• Brett Butler – Knee Deep in Paradise
• Ann Chamberlin – Sofia; The Sultan's Daughter
• Tom Clancy – Executive Orders
• Mary Higgins Clark – Moonlight Becomes You
• Joseph Connolly – This Is It
• Bernard Cornwell – The Bloody Ground and Enemy of God
• Douglas Coupland – Polaroids from the Dead
• Amanda Craig – A Vicious Circle
• Robert Crais – Sunset Express
• John Darnton – Neanderthal
• Donald Davidson – The Big Ballad Jamboree
• Fabrizio De André – Un destino ridicolo
• Seamus Deane – Reading in the Dark
• Michel Déon – The Great and the Good (La Cour des grands)
• Stephen R. Donaldson – The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die
• Ben Elton – Popcorn
• Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones' Diary
• Jon Fosse – Melancholy II (Melancholia II)
• Mavis Gallant – Selected Stories
• John Gardner – Cold
• Richard Garfinkle – Celestial Matters
• Alex Garland – The Beach
• William Golding – The Double Tongue
• John Grisham – The Runaway Jury and Hackers (short stories)
• James L. Halperin – The Truth Machine
• Colin Harrison – Manhattan Nocturne
• Elisabeth Harvor – Let Me Be the One (short stories)
• Nancy Huston – The Goldberg Variations
• Tama Janowitz – By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee
• Matt Jones – Bad Therapy
• Stephen King – Desperation, The Green Mile and The Regulators
• Dean R. Koontz – Intensity
• Michael P. Kube-McDowell – Before the Storm, Shield of Lies and Tyrant's Test
• Caroline Lamarche – Le Jour du chien ("The Day of the Dog")
• Hugh Laurie – The Gun Seller
• John le Carré – The Tailor of Panama
• Paul Leonard – Speed of Flight
• Steve Lyons – Killing Ground
• George R. R. Martin – A Game of Thrones
• David A. McIntee – The Shadow of Weng-Chiang
• Terry McMillan – How Stella Got Her Groove Back
• Javier Marías – When I Was Mortal (Cuando fui mortal, short stories)
• Vladimir Megre – Anastasiya
• Lawrence Miles – Christmas on a Rational Planet
• Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
• Shani Mootoo – Cereus Blooms at Night
• Joyce Carol Oates – We Were the Mulvaneys
• Daniel O'Mahony – The Man in the Velvet Mask
• Kate Orman – Return of the Living Dad and Sleepy
• Chuck Palahniuk – Fight Club
• Lance Parkin – Cold Fusion and Just War
• Marc Platt – Downtime
• Terry Pratchett – Feet of Clay and Hogfather
• Qiu Miaojin (posthumous) – Last Words from Montmartre
• James Redfield – The Tenth Insight
• Justin Richards – The Sands of Time
• Gareth Roberts – The English Way of Death and The Plotters
• Mary Rosenblum – Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities
• Kristine Kathryn Rusch – The New Rebellion
• Gary Russell – The Scales of Injustice
• Al-Tayyib Salih – Bandarshah
• Jeff Shaara – Gods and Generals
• Michael Slade – Zombie and Evil Eye
• Michael Stackpole – The Krytos Trap, Rogue Squadron and Wedge's Gamble
• Dave Stone – Death and Diplomacy
• Graham Swift – Last Orders
• Guy Vanderhaeghe – The Englishman's Boy
• David Foster Wallace – Infinite Jest

Children and young people

• Anne Fine – The Tulip Touch
• Rumer Godden
  • The Little Chair
  • Premlata and the Festival of Lights
  • Cockcrow to Starlight: A Day Full of Poetry (anthology)
• Michael Morpurgo – The Butterfly Lion
• Jim Murphy - A YOUNG PATRIOT: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy
• Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife (second in the His Dark Materials trilogy)
• Diane Stanley - Leonardo da Vinci (Stanley book)
• Various Authors (with Willi Glasauer) - Hitos y Mitos de la Literatura Fantástica|The Milestones and the Stories of Greatest Fantasy Literature

Drama

• Jeff Baron – Visiting Mr. Green
• Nick Enright – Blackrock
• Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues
• Pam Gems – Stanley
• Ayub Khan-Din – East is East
• Martin McDonagh – The Beauty Queen of Leenane
• Mark Ravenhill – Shopping and Fucking
• Wallace Shawn – The Designated Mourner
• Joshua Sobol – Alma
• Enda Walsh – Disco Pigs

Poetry

Main article: 1996 in poetry

Non-fiction

• John Berendt – Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
• David Chalmers – The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory
• Norman Davies – Europe: A History
• Richard Dawkins – Climbing Mount Improbable
• Alan Downs – Corporate Executions: the Ugly Truth about Downsizing – How Corporate Greed is Shattering Lives, Companies, and Communities
• Richard Mabey – Flora Britannica
• Gabriel García Márquez – News of a Kidnapping (Noticia de un secuestro)
• Daniel Goleman – Emotional Intelligence
• Howard Marks – Mr Nice
• Anne Mullens – Timely Death

Deaths

• January 5 – Lincoln Kirstein, American writer and impresario (born 1907)
• January 16 – Kaye Webb, English publisher and journalist (born 1914)
• January 21 – Efua Sutherland, Ghanaian dramatist, poet and children's author (born 1924)
• January 27 – Barbara Skelton, English fiction writer, memoirist and literary figure (born 1916)
• January 28
  • Jerry Siegel, American cartoonist (born 1914)
  • Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (myocardial infarction, born 1940)
• February 11
  • Bob Shaw, Northern Irish science fiction writer (born 1931)
  • Amelia Rosselli, Italian poet (born 1930)
• February 18 – Cathal Ó Sándair, Irish-language novelist (born 1922)
• March 3 – Marguerite Duras, French dramatist and film director (born 1914)
• March 15 – Wolfgang Koeppen, German novelist (born 1906)
• March 18 – Odysseas Elytis, Greek writer and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)
• March 22 – Ian Stephens, Canadian poet (year of birth not known)
• March 29 – Frank Daniel, Czech-born screenwriter, director, producer and teacher (born 1926)
• March 31 – Dario Bellezza, Italian poet and dramatist (HIV, born 1944)
• April 16 – Leila Mackinlay, British romantic novelist (born 1910)
• April 20 – Christopher Robin Milne, English writer and bookseller (born 1920)
• April 22 – Erma Bombeck, American humorist and writer (born 1927)
• April 23 – P. L. Travers, Australian-born children's writer (born 1899)
• May 8 – Larry Levis, American poet, author, and critic (b. 1946)
• May 24 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist (born 1908)
• May 26
  • Ovidiu Papadima, Romanian critic and essayist (born 1909)
  • Margaret Douglas-Home, English writer and musician (born 1906)
• May 31 – Timothy Leary, American writer (born 1920)
• June 2 – Leon Garfield, English children's author (born 1921)
• June 14 – Gesualdo Bufalino, Italian novelist (born 1920)
• June 15 – Fitzroy Maclean, Scottish political writer, autobiographer and diplomat (born 1911)
• June 26 – Veronica Guerin, Irish crime reporter (murdered, born 1958)
• July 10 – Eno Raud, Estonian children's author (born 1928)
• July 22 – Jessica Mitford, Anglo-American author, journalist and campaigner (born 1917)
• September 29 – Shusaku Endo (遠藤 周作), Japanese novelist (born 1923)
• October 16 – Eric Malpass, English novelist (born 1910)
• October 24 – Sorley Maclean, Gaelic poet (born 1911)
• December 9 – Diana Morgan, Welsh playwright and screenwriter (born 1908)
• December 12 – Vance Packard, American journalist and social critic (born 1914)
• December 16 – Quentin Bell, English biographer and art historian (born 1910)
• December 20 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist and writer (born 1934)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska
• Camões Prize: Eduardo Lourenço

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Bernard Cohen, The Blindman's Hat
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Peter Bakowski, In the Human Night
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Eric Beach, Weeping for Lost Babylon
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Jordie Albiston, Nervous Arcs
• Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, Highways to a War

Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Margaret Atwood: – Alias Grace
• See 1996 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: George G. Blackburn, The Guns of Normandy

France

• Prix Goncourt: Pascale Roze, Le Chasseur Zéro
• Prix Décembre: Régis Debray, Loués soient nos seigneurs: une éducation politique
• Prix Médicis French: Orlanda – Jacqueline Harpman and L'Organisation – Jean Rolin
• Prix Médicis International: Himmelfarb – Michael Kruger, Germany and Sonietchka – Ludmila Oulitskaïa, Russia

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Graham Swift, Last Orders
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Melvin Burgess, Junk
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Graham Swift, Last Orders, and Alice Thompson, Justine
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life
• Cholmondeley Award: Elizabeth Bartlett, Dorothy Nimmo, Peter Scupham, Iain Crichton Smith
• Eric Gregory Award: Sue Butler, Cathy Cullis, Jane Griffiths, Jane Holland, Chris Jones, Sinéad Morrissey, Kate Thomas
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Redgrove
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Helen Conkling, Red Peony Night
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: John Voiklis, "The Princeling's Apology", and (separately) Sarah Arvio, "Visits from the Seventh"
• Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Kenneth Koch, One Train
• Compton Crook Award: Daniel Graham Jr., The Gatekeepers
• Hugo Award: Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
• National Book Award: Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever and Other Stories
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for Fiction Gina Berriault, Women in Their Beds
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for Poetry William Matthews, Time and Money
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for General nonfiction Jonathan Harr, A Civil Action
• National Book Critics Circle Award: for Biography Robert Polito, Savage Art: A Biography of Jim Thompson
• Nebula Award: Nicola Griffith, Slow River
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Karen Cushman, The Midwife's Apprentice
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Richard Ford, Independence Day
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Jonathan Larson, Rent
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Richard Ford – Independence Day
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Jorie Graham: The Dream of the Unified Field
• Wallace Stevens Award: Adrienne Rich
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Anderson Ferrell, Cristina García, Molly Gloss, Brian Kiteley, Chris Offutt (fiction/nonfiction), Judy Troy, A.J. Verdelle

Nonfiction: Patricia Storace (nonfiction/poetry)

Poetry: Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Elizabeth Spires

Elsewhere

• IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: David Malouf, Remembering Babylon
• Premio Nadal: Pedro Maestre, Matando dinosaurios con tirachinas