1996 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1996.

Events

 * July 8 – Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn and 30 other books are struck from an English reading list in Lindale, Texas, as they "conflict with the values of the community."
 * July 11 – As requested by Nelson Mandela, Benjamin Zephaniah hosts the President's Two Nations Concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.
 * October 3 – The first performance is held in New York of Eve Ensler's episodic feminist play 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, a 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.

Fiction

 * 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
 * David Bergen – A Year of Lesser
 * Xurxo Borrazás – Eu é
 * Dionne Brand – In Another Place, Not Here
 * Larry Brown – Father and Son
 * Brett Butler – Knee Deep in Paradise
 * Tom Clancy – Executive Orders
 * 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
 * Seamus Deane – Reading in the Dark
 * Stephen R. Donaldson – The Gap into Ruin: This Day All Gods Die
 * Ben Elton – Popcorn
 * Steve Erickson – Amnesiascope
 * Helen Fielding – Bridget Jones's Diary
 * Jon Fosse – Melancholy II (Melancholia II)
 * Neil Gaiman
 * The Sandman: The Kindly Ones (graphic novel; ninth in The Sandman series)
 * The Sandman: The Wake (graphic novel; tenth in The Sandman series)
 * 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
 * The Regulators
 * Dean R. Koontz – Intensity
 * Michael P. Kube-McDowell – Before the Storm
 * Shield of Lies
 * 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
 * The Plotters
 * Mary Rosenblum – Synthesis & Other Virtual Realities
 * Kristine Kathryn Rusch – The New Rebellion
 * Gary Russell – The Scales of Injustice
 * Jeff Shaara – Gods and Generals
 * Michael Slade – Zombie and Evil Eye
 * Michael Stackpole
 * The Krytos Trap
 * Rogue Squadron
 * Wedge's Gamble
 * Dave Stone – Death and Diplomacy
 * Graham Swift – Last Orders
 * Guy Vanderhaeghe – The Englishman's Boy
 * David Foster Wallace – Infinite Jest
 * Monika Maron – Animal Triste

Children and young people

 * K.A. Applegate – Animorphs series
 * Marion Zimmer Bradley (with Rosemary Edghill) – Witchlight
 * Eve Bunting (with Ned Bittinger) – The Blue and the Gray
 * James C. Christensen (with Renwick St. James and Alan Dean Foster) – Voyage of the Basset
 * Anne Fine – The Tulip Touch
 * Elaine Forrestal – Someone Like Me
 * Mem Fox – Boo to a Goose
 * Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) – A City in Winter
 * E. T. A. Hoffmann (with Roberto Innocenti) – The Nutcracker
 * Lyll Becerra de Jenkins – So Loud a Silence
 * Julius Lester – Sam and the Tigers: A New Telling of Little Black Sambo
 * Anne McCaffrey – No One Noticed the Cat
 * Michael Morpurgo – The Butterfly Lion
 * Jim Murphy – A Young Patriot: The American Revolution as Experienced by One Boy
 * Andre Norton (with Martin H. Greenberg and Mark Hess) – Catfantastic IV
 * Joyce Carol Oates (with Barry Moser) – First Love: A Gothic Tale
 * Iona Opie – My Very First Mother Goose
 * Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife (second in His Dark Materials trilogy)
 * Alan Schroeder – Minty: A Story of Young Harriet Tubman
 * Diane Stanley – Leonardo da Vinci
 * Jean Ure – Skinny Melon and Me

Drama

 * Jeff Baron – Visiting Mr. Green
 * Nick Enright – Blackrock
 * Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues
 * Jon Fosse
 * Barnet (The Child)
 * Nokon kjem til å komme (Someone is going to come) (completed 1993)
 * Pam Gems – Stanley
 * Jenny Kemp – The Black Sequin Dress
 * 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
 * Shelagh Stephenson – The Memory of Water
 * Botho Strauß – Ithaka
 * Enda Walsh – Disco Pigs
 * Peter Whelan – The Herbal Bed
 * Roy Williams – The No Boys Cricket Club

Non-fiction

 * Nelson Algren (posthumous) – Nonconformity (essay, written 1953)
 * Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza, Carlos Alberto Montaner and Álvaro Vargas Llosa – Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot (essay)
 * Stephen Ambrose – Undaunted Courage
 * Bruce Bawer (editor) – Beyond Queer
 * 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
 * David Denby – Great Books
 * Antonia Fraser – The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Faith in 1605
 * Daniel Goleman – Emotional Intelligence
 * Denis Guedj – Numbers: The Universal Language
 * Jennifer Hanson – The Real Freshman Handbook
 * Samuel P. Huntington – The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
 * Richard Mabey – Flora Britannica
 * Howard Marks – Mr Nice
 * Dylan Morgan – The Principles of Hypnotherapy
 * Anne Mullens – Timely Death
 * Denise Schmandt-Besserat – How Writing Came About
 * Arun Shourie – Missionaries in India
 * Alexander Skutch – The Minds of Birds
 * Alessandro Vezzosi – Leonardo da Vinci: The Mind of the Renaissance

Births

 * May 29 - R. F. Kuang, American fantasy and contemporary fiction writer
 * August 13 - Emrecan Doğan, Turkish fantasy, horror, science fiction and speculative fiction writer
 * November 13 - Zeki Majed, Kurdish filmmaker and poet
 * December 25 - Elvira Natali, Indonesian author and actress

Deaths

 * January 5 – Lincoln Kirstein, American writer and impresario (born 1907)
 * January 8 – Howard Taubman, American author and critic (born 1907)
 * January 11 – Harold Walter Bailey, English linguistics scholar (born 1899)
 * 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 12 – Ryōtarō Shiba, Japanese novelist (born 1923)
 * February 18 – Cathal Ó Sándair, Irish-language novelist (born 1922)
 * March 3
 * Marguerite Duras, French dramatist and film director (born 1914)
 * Léo Malet, French crime novelist and surrealist (born 1909)
 * March 15 – Wolfgang Koeppen, German novelist (born 1906)
 * March 18
 * Jacquetta Hawkes (née Hopkins), English writer and archeologist (born 1910)
 * Odysseas Elytis, Greek writer and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)
 * March 22
 * Claude Mauriac, French novelist and journalist (born 1914)
 * Ian Stephens, Canadian poet (year of birth not known)
 * March 29 – Frank Daniel, Czech-born screenwriter, director, 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 18 – Kalim Siddiqui, Pakistani-born English writer and Islamic activist (born 1931)
 * 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 2 – Emile Habibi, Palestinian Israeli writer and politician (born 1922)
 * May 8 – Larry Levis, American poet, author, and critic (born 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 psychologist and 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)
 * July 10 – Eno Raud, Estonian children's author (born 1928)
 * July 22 – Jessica Mitford, English author, journalist and campaigner (born 1917)
 * September 21 – Henri Nouwen, Dutch priest, theologian and author (born 1932)
 * 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)
 * November 27 – Lili Berger, Yiddish writer, antifascist militant and literary critic (born 1916)
 * December 7 – José Donoso, Chilean writer (born 1924)
 * 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)
 * December 21 – Margret Rey, American author and illustrator (born 1906)

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

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

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