1997 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1997.

Events

*February 20 – Allen Ginsberg makes a final public appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam. He continues to write through his final illness, his last poem being "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)" written on March 30.
*May 27 – Shakespeare's Globe in London, a reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre, opens with a production of Shakespeare's '' Henry V''.
* June 3 – The supposed climax of Max Beerbohm's 1916 short story '' Enoch Soames'' occurs at the old British Museum Reading Room in London.
* June 26 – J. K. Rowling's first ''Harry Potter'' novel, '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published in London by Bloomsbury Publishing, in an edition of 500 copies.
* July 13 – The release occurs in Ireland of the film of Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel '' The Butcher Boy''. The author plays Jimmy The Skite, the town drunk.
* September 1 – '' The Adventures of Captain Underpants'', the first in Dav Pilkey's series of children's novels, is published by Scholastic.
*October – The online literary magazine ''Jacket'' is founded.
* November 24 – The new British Library building in London designed by Colin St John Wilson opens to readers.
*December 30 – The memoir ''I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'' by Maya Angelou is removed from the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, for portraying "white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people".

''Uncertain dates''
* Tom Clancy signs a deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. giving him US $50 million for the world English rights to two new books. A second agreement pays another $25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal, and a third, with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with an ABC television miniseries for $22 million.
* Janet Dailey admits to plagiarism of the novels of the fellow American bestselling romance writer Nora Roberts.

New books

Fiction

* Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman – '' So Vile a Sin''
* Mitch Albom – '' Tuesdays With Morrie''
*Martin Amis – '' Night Train''
* Iain Banks – '' A Song of Stone''
* John Banville – ''The Untouchable''
*Hazel Barnes – ''The Story I Tell Myself''
* Marie Bashkirtseff (died 1884) – ''I Am the Most Interesting Book of All'' (translation)
*Raymond Benson – '' Tomorrow Never Dies'' and '' Zero Minus Ten''
* Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman – '' Vampire Science''
* Roberto Bolaño – '' Last Evenings on Earth (Llamadas Telefonicas)''
* Pascal Bruckner – '' Les Voleurs de beauté''
* Simon Bucher-Jones – '' Ghost Devices''
* Christopher Bulis – ''A Device of Death''
* Tim Burton – '' The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories''
* Candace Bushnell – '' Sex and the City''
* Peter Carey – ''Jack Maggs''
*Caleb Carr – '' The Angel of Darkness''
*Agatha Christie (died 1976) – collected short stories
**''The Harlequin Tea Set''
**'' While the Light Lasts and Other Stories''
* Daniel Clowes – '' Ghost World'' (graphic novel)
*Warwick Collins – '' Gents''
* Bernard Cornwell
**'' Sharpe's Tiger''
**'' Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur''
*Patricia Cornwell
**''Hornet's Nest''
**'' Unnatural Exposure''
* Paul Cornell – '' Oh No It Isn't!''
* Jim Crace – '' Quarantine''
* Robert Crais – ''Indigo Slam''
*Ann C. Crispin
**''The Hutt Gambit''
**'' The Paradise Snare''
*'Misha Defonseca' – '' Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years'' (published as non-fiction)
* Don DeLillo – '' Underworld''
* Anita Diamant – '' The Red Tent''
* Terrance Dicks
**'' The Eight Doctors''
**'' Mean Streets''
* Fernanda Eberstadt – ''When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth''
* Bernardine Evaristo – ''Lara''
* Charles Frazier – '' Cold Mountain''
* Anthony Frewin – '' London Blues''
*Anastasia Gosteva – ''Дочь самурая'' (The Samurai's Daughter)
* John Grisham – '' The Partner''
* Barbara Hambly – ''Planet of Twilight''
* Allison Hedge Coke – ''Dog Road Woman''
* Matt Jones – '' Beyond the Sun''
* Sebastian Junger – '' The Perfect Storm''
* Winona LaDuke – ''Last Standing Woman''
*Joe R. Lansdale – ''Bad Chili''
* Paul Leonard – '' Genocide''
*Melissa Lucashenko – '' Steam Pigs''
*Ann-Marie MacDonald – ''Fall on Your Knees''
* Bernard MacLaverty – '' Grace Notes''
*Ian R. MacLeod – '' Voyages by Starlight''
*Norman Mailer – ''The Gospel According to the Son''
* Ian McEwan – '' Enduring Love''
* David A. McIntee – '' The Dark Path''
* Lawrence Miles
**'' Alien Bodies''
**''Down''
* Mark Morris – '' The Bodysnatchers''
* Toni Morrison – '' Paradise''
* Jim Mortimore – '' Eternity Weeps''
* Herta Müller – '' The Appointment''
* Ryū Murakami (村上 龍) – '' In the Miso Soup'' (イン ザ・ミソスープ, English translation 2005)
*Courttia Newland – ''The Scholar''
* Kate Orman – ''The Room with No Doors''
*Hanne Ørstavik – ''Kjærlighet'' (Love)
* Lance Parkin – '' The Dying Days''
* James Patterson – '' Cat and Mouse''
* Cyril Pearl – ''Morisson of Peking''
*John Peel – ''War of the Daleks''
* Pepetela – '' A Gloriosa Família''
* Marc Platt – '' Lungbarrow''
* Terry Pratchett – '' Jingo''
* Annie Proulx – "Brokeback Mountain" (short story)
* Thomas Pynchon – ''Mason & Dixon''
* Kathy Reichs – ''Déjà Dead''
*Nina Revoyr – ''The Necessary Hunger''
* Justin Richards – '' Dragons' Wrath''
* Mordecai Richler – '' Barney's Version''
* Gareth Roberts – ''The Well-Mannered War''
* Philip Roth – ''American Pastoral''
* Arundhati Roy – '' The God of Small Things''
* Don Miguel Ruiz – '' The Four Agreements''
* Gary Russell
**'' Deadfall''
**''Instruments of Darkness''
* Will Self – '' Great Apes''
* Carol Shields – '' Larry's Party''
* Sidney Sheldon – '' The Best Laid Plans''
* Michael Stackpole – '' The Bacta War''
*Danielle Steel
**''The Ghost''
**''The Ranch''
**'' Special Delivery''
* Dave Stone
**'' Burning Heart''
**'' Ship of Fools''
* William Sutcliffe – ''Are You Experienced?''
* Antonio Tabucchi – '' The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro (La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro)''
* Kaoru Takamura – ' (book publication completed)
* Eckhart Tolle – ''The Power of Now''
* Zlatko Topčić – ''Nightmare''
* Kurt Vonnegut – '' Timequake''
* Lulu Wang – ''Het Lelietheater'' (The Lily Theatre)
* Niall Williams – ''Four Letters of Love''
* Connie Willis – ''To Say Nothing of the Dog''
* Timothy Zahn – ''Specter of the Past''
* Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold – '' Donnerjack''

Children and young people

* Lloyd Alexander – '' The Iron Ring''
*Lynne Reid Banks – ''Harry the Poisonous Centipede: A Story to Make You Squirm'' (first in the ''Harry the Poisonous Centipede'' trilogy)
* 'Asta Bowen – '' Wolf: A Journey Home''
*Nancy Butts - ''The Door in the Lake''
*Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒) – The Grass House (草房子)
*Sarah Ferguson – '' Budgie the Little Helicopter'' (first in an eponymous series of 5 books)
* Mem Fox – '' Whoever You Are''
* Cornelia Funke – '' Dragon Rider''
* Virginia Hamilton (with Barry Moser) – ''A Ring of Tricksters: Animal Tales from America, the West Indies, and Africa''
* Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) – ''The Veil of Snows''
* William Mayne – ''Lady Muck'' (illustrated by Jonathan Heale)
*Eloise Jarvis McGraw – ''The Moorchild''
*Junko Morimoto – '' The Two Bullies''
* Barbara Nichol (with Barry Moser) – '' Dippers''
* Dav Pilkey – '' The Adventures of Captain Underpants'' (first in the '' Captain Underpants'' series of 12 books)
* Philip Pullman – '' The Subtle Knife''
* Rick Riordan – ''Big Red Tequila''
* J. K. Rowling – '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'' (first book in the ''Harry Potter'' series)
* Ron Roy – ''The Absent Author'' (first in the ''A to Z Mysteries'' series of 26 books)
* Vivian Walsh – '' Olive, the Other Reindeer''
* Jacqueline Wilson – '' Girls in Love''

Drama

* Jon Fosse – '' Nightsongs''
* Lee Hall – '' Spoonface Steinberg'' (radio monologue)
*Moisés Kaufman – '' Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde''
* Thomas Kilroy – ''The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde''
* Conor McPherson – '' The Weir''
* Patrick Marber – '' Closer''
* Richard Nelson – ''Goodnight Children Everywhere''
* Peter Whelan – '' The Herbal Bed''

Poetry

* Ted Hughes – '' Tales from Ovid''

Non-fiction

*Dave Barry – '' Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs''
* Jean-Dominique Bauby – '' The Diving Bell and the Butterfly'' (Le Scaphandre et le papillon)
*Cari Beauchamp – ''Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood''
* Jan Bondeson – ''A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities''
* Bill Bryson – '' A Walk in the Woods''
* D. K. Chakrabarti – ''Colonial Indology : sociopolitics of the ancient Indian past''
* Iris Chang – ''The Rape of Nanking''
* Jared Diamond – ''Guns, Germs and Steel''
* Jenny Diski – ''Skating to Antarctica''
*Michael Drosnin – ''The Bible Code''
* Gerina Dunwich – ''A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination''
* Geoff Dyer – ''Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence''
* Timothy Ferris – '' The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report''
* Benjamin Fondane (died 1944) – ''Le Voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager''
* Stephen Fry – ''Moab Is My Washpot'' (autobiography)
* Charlotte Gray – '' Mrs. King''
* Alan Guth – '' The Inflationary Universe''
* Robert Hughes – '' American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America''
*Jesse Lee Kercheval – '' Building Fiction''
*Betty Kobayashi Issenman – '' Sinews of Survival''
* Geneviève Lacambre – '' Gustave Moreau : Maître sorcier''
* B. B. Lal – ''The Earliest civilization of South Asia: rise, maturity, and decline''
* Peter Maas – '' Underboss''
*Deborah Madison – ''Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone''
* James McBride – ''The Color of Water''
*Adele Morales – '' The Last Party: Scenes From My Life with Norman Mailer''
* Ian Smith – '' The Great Betrayal''
* Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont – ''Fashionable Nonsense''
* Maria Todorova – '' Imagining the Balkans''
* Kevin Warwick – '' March of the Machines''
*Thierry Zéphir – '' Khmer: The Lost Empire of Cambodia''

Births

* February 12 - Alexander Nikolov, Bulgarian poet
* June 22 - Aqiil Gopee, Mauritian writer and poet
* November 28 - Franz Mherryon Robles, Filipino novelist and aphorist.

Deaths

* January 19 – James Dickey, American poet and novelist (born 1923)
*February 3 – Bohumil Hrabal, Czech novelist (born 1914)
* February 18 – Emily Hahn, American journalist and author (born 1905)
*March 21 - Wilbert Awdry, British Anglican reverend and author (born 1911)
*April 5 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (liver cancer, born 1926)
* May 9 – Rina Lasnier, Canadian poet (born 1915)
* May 23 – Alison Adburgham, English social historian and journalist (born 1912)
* June 8 – George Turner, Australian novelist and critic (born 1916)
* July 26 – Joseph Henry Reason, American librarian (born 1905)
*August 2 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist (born 1914
*August 16 – Gerard McLarnon, Irish actor and playwright (born 1915)
* August 27 – Johannes Edfelt, Swedish poet, translator and critic (born 1904)
* October 14 – Harold Robbins, American novelist (born 1916)
* October 16 – James A. Michener, American novelist and historian (born 1907)
* November 6 – Leon Forrest, African American novelist and essayist (cancer, born 1937)
* November 30 – Kathy Acker, American novelist and poet (breast cancer, born 1947)
* December 14 – Owen Barfield, British philosopher, author and poet (born 1898)

Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo
* Europe Theatre Prize: Robert Wilson
* Camões Prize: Pepetela

Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Eva Sallis, ''Hiam''
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, ''Subhuman Redneck Poems''
*Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry