# 1995 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1995.

## Events

* January 12 – The première of Sarah Kane's complete Blasted at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London provokes outrage.
* February 28 – The Diary of Bridget Jones column first appears in The Independent newspaper (London).
* March 1 – The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter.
* April 23 – World Book Day is first celebrated.
* July 16 – Amazon.com, incorporated a year earlier by Jeff Bezos in Washington (state) as an online bookstore, sells its first book: Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.
* August – Blackwell UK becomes the first British bookseller to offer online purchasing.
* December 13 – The released film of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility has an Academy Award-winning screenplay by Emma Thompson.
Uncertain dates
* Simon & Schuster pays US$4.2 million for hardcover publishing rights to The Christmas Box, self-published by Richard Paul Evans, which has appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.
* Fjærland in Norway becomes a book town.

## New books
### Fiction

* Ben Aaronovitch – The Also People
* Louisa May Alcott (posthumous) – A Long Fatal Love Chase
* Roger MacBride Allen
** Ambush at Corellia
** Assault at Selonia
** Showdown at Centerpoint
* Julia Alvarez – In the Time of the Butterflies
* Martin Amis – The Information
* Kevin J. Anderson – Darksaber
* Iain Banks – Whit
* Pat Barker – The Ghost Road
* Daniel Blythe – Infinite Requiem
* Thomas Brussig – Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us)
* Christopher Bulis – The Sorcerer's Apprentice
* Edgar Rice Burroughs and Joe R. Lansdale – Tarzan: the Lost Adventure
* T. C. Boyle – The Tortilla Curtain
* Albert Camus (posthumous) – The First Man (Le Premier Homme, unfinished)
* Andrew Cartmel – Warlock
* Mary Higgins Clark – Silent Night
* Michael Connelly – The Last Coyote
* Paul Cornell – Human Nature
* Bernard Cornwell
** Sharpe's Battle
** Battle Flag
** The Winter King
* Douglas Coupland – Microserfs
* Robert Crais – Voodoo River
* Michael Crichton – The Lost World
* Maurice G. Dantec – Les Racines du mal
* Martin Day – The Menagerie
* L. Sprague de Camp and Christopher Stasheff – The Exotic Enchanter
* Samuel Delany – Hogg
* Terrance Dicks – Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans
* Umberto Eco – The Island of the Day Before
* Stanley Elkin – Mrs. Ted Bliss
* Kirill Eskov – The Gospel of Afranius («Евангелие от Афрания»)
* Nicholas Evans – The Horse Whisperer
* Timothy Findley – The Piano Man's Daughter
* Richard Ford – Independence Day
* Jon Fosse – Melancholy (Melancholia I)
* Carlos Fuentes – The Crystal Frontier (La frontera de cristal)
* John Gardner – GoldenEye
* John Grisham – The Rainmaker
* Barbara Hambly – Children of the Jedi
* Craig Hinton – Millennial Rites
* Nick Hornby – High Fidelity
* Kazuo Ishiguro – The Unconsoled
* Elfriede Jelinek – The Children of the Dead
* Jo Jung-rae – Arirang
* Welwyn Wilton Katz – Out of the Dark
* Stephen King – Rose Madder
* Joe R. Lansdale – The Two-Bear Mambo
* John le Carré – Our Game
* Andy Lane
** The Empire of Glass
** Original Sin
* Paul Leonard
** Dancing the Code
** Toy Soldiers
* Jonathan Lethem – Amnesia Moon
* Barry Letts – The Ghosts of N-Space
* Robert Ludlum – The Apocalypse Watch
* Steve Lyons
** Head Games
** Time of Your Life
* Frank McCourt – Angela's Ashes (semi-autobiographical)
* Val McDermid – The Mermaids Singing
* David A. McIntee
** Lords of the Storm
** Sanctuary
* Andreï Makine – Dreams of My Russian Summers (Le Testament français)
* Henning Mankell – Chronicler of the Winds (Comédia infantil)
* Stephen Marley – Managra
* Zakes Mda – Ways of Dying
* James A. Michener – Miracle in Seville
* Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
* Mary McGarry Morris – Songs in Ordinary Time
* Kate Orman – Set Piece
* Terry Pratchett – Maskerade
* Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
** Relic
** Mount Dragon
* Christoph Ransmayr – The Dog King (Morbus Kitahara)
* Jean Raspail – L'Anneau du pêcheur
* Justin Richards – System Shock
* Andrew Roberts – The Aachen Memorandum
* Gareth Roberts
** The Romance of Crime
** Zamper
* J. Jill Robinson – Eggplant Wife
* Philip Roth – Sabbath's Theater
* Salman Rushdie – The Moor's Last Sigh
* Gary Russell – Invasion of the Cat-People
* Josè Saramago – Blindness (Ensaio sobre a cegueira)
* Bernhard Schlink – The Reader
* W. G. Sebald – Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt (The Rings of Saturn: An English Pilgrimage)
* Sidney Sheldon – Morning, Noon and Night
* Jane Smiley - Moo
* Danielle Steel – Five Days In Paris
* Neal Stephenson – The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
* James B. Stewart – Blood Sport
* Dave Stone – Sky Pirates!
* Olga Tokarczuk – E.E.
* Jim Turner, editor – Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology
* Andrew Vachss – Footsteps of the Hawk
* Robert James Waller – Puerto Vallarta Squeeze
* Dave Wolverton – The Courtship of Princess Leia

### Children and young people

* Chris Van Allsburg – Bad Day at Riverbend
* Elizabeth Arnold – The Parsley Parcel
* Marion Zimmer Bradley (with Rosemary Edghill) – Ghostlight
* Jimmy Carter (illustrated by Amy Carter) – The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer
* Donald Hall (with Barry Moser) – The Pageant
* Virginia Hamilton (with Leo and Diane Dillon) – Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales
* Joe R. Lansdale – Tarzan: the Lost Adventure
* Fran Manushkin (with Ned Bittinger) – The Matzah That Papa Brought Home
* Jim Murphy – The Great Fire
* Alison Prince – The Sherwood Hero
* Philip Pullman – Northern Lights (in US as The Golden Compass)
* Diana Pullein-Thompson – I Wanted a Pony
* Josephine Pullein-Thompson – Six Ponies
* Mario Vargas Llosa (with Willi Glasauer) – Hitos y Mitos Literarios (The Milestones and the Stories of Greatest Literary Works)
* Judith Viorst – Alexander, Who Is Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move
* Jacqueline Wilson – Double Act

### Drama

* Parv Bancil – Papa Was A Bus Conductor
* Jez Butterworth – Mojo
* Margaret Edson – Wit
* Horton Foote – The Young Man From Atlanta
* Jon Fosse – The Name (Namnet)
* Ronald Harwood – Taking Sides
* Sarah Kane – Blasted
* Terrence McNally – Master Class
* Lynn Nottage
** Crumbs from the Table of Joy
** Por'Knockers
* Yasmina Reza – The Unexpected Man (L'homme du hasard)
* Tom Stoppard – Indian Ink

### Poetry

* Mark Doty – Atlantis: Poems

### Non-fiction

* André Aciman – Out of Egypt
* Jean Baudrillard – The Gulf War Did Not Take Place
* John G. Bennett (posthumously) – The Masters of Wisdom
* George G. Blackburn – The Guns of Normandy
* Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams – The Craft of Research
* Pascal Bruckner – The Temptation of Innocence
* L. Sprague de Camp – The Ape-Man Within
* Tim Cornell – The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars
* Paul Davies – About Time
* Robin Dunbar – The Trouble with Science
* Mark Epstein – Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
* Bill Gates – The Road Ahead
* Doris Kearns Goodwin – No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
* Richard Hoffman – Half the House: A Memoir
* Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom
* Leonard Nimoy – I Am Spock
* Leslie and Les Parrott – Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
* Man Ray and André Breton – Man Ray, 1890–1976
* Condoleezza Rice and Philip Zelikow – Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft
* Oliver Sacks – An Anthropologist on Mars
* Simon Schama – Landscape and Memory
* Sterling Seagrave – Lords of the Rim
* Miranda Seymour – Robert Graves: Life on the Edge
* Howard Stern – Miss America
* Ibn Warraq – Why I Am Not a Muslim
* Jane Wesman – Dive Right In: The Sharks Won't Bite
* Jane Wilson-Howarth – Bugs, Bites & Bowels (later editions as The Essential Guide to Travel Health)

## Films

* Sense and Sensibility

## Births

* June 7 - Beth Reekles, Welsh author of young adult fiction
* June 13 - S. C. Megale, American novelist and screenwriter

## Deaths

* January 9 – Peter Cook, English writer, comedian and satirist (born 1937)
* January 30 – Gerald Durrell, English nature writer and naturalist (born 1925)
* January 31 – George Abbott, American writer, director and producer (born 1887)
* February 4 – Patricia Highsmith, American crime novelist (born 1921)
* February 6
** James Merrill, American poet (born 1926)
** Xia Yan (夏衍), Chinese playwright and screenwriter, (born 1900)
* February 14 – Mary Paik Lee, Korean-American writer (born 1900)
* February 20 – Robert Bolt, English dramatist (born 1924)
* February 21 – Calder Willingham, American writer (born 1922)
* February 23 – James Herriot, English veterinary novelist (born 1916)
* March 9 – Ian Ballantine, American publisher (born 1916)
* March 20 – Sidney Kingsley, American dramatist (born 1906)
* April 14 – Brian Coffey, Irish poet (born 1905)
* April 27 – Willem Frederik Hermans, Dutch writer (born 1921)
* May 30 or May 31 – Ștefana Velisar Teodoreanu, Romanian novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1897)
* June 14 – Roger Zelazny, American fantasy and science fiction writer (born 1937)
* June 15 – Charles Bennett, English screenwriter (born 1899)
* June 20 – Emil Cioran, Romanian philosopher and essayist (born 1911)
* June 21– Katarína Lazarová, Slovak novelist and translator (born 1914)
* June 25 – Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津), Taiwanese Chinese novelist (suicide, born 1969)
* July 6 – Aziz Nesin, Turkish writer (born 1915)
* July 13 – Ashapoorna Devi, Indian author and poet (born 1908)
* July 16
** May Sarton, Belgian-born American poet, novelist and memoirist (born 1912)
** Stephen Spender, English poet (born 1909)
* July 25 – Janice Elliott, English novelist and children's writer (born 1931)
* August 3 – Edward Whittemore, American novelist, (born 1933)
* August 17 – Howard Koch, American screenwriter (born 1901)
* August 19 – Pierre Schaeffer, French composer and writer (born 1910)
* August 29 – Michael Ende, German fantasy novelist (born 1929)
* September 8 – Eileen Chang, Chinese writer (born 1920)
* October 13 – Henry Roth, Austrian-born American novelist and short story writer (born 1906)
* October 22 – Kingsley Amis, English novelist (born 1922)
* October 29 – Terry Southern, American screenwriter (born 1924)
* November 4 – Gilles Deleuze, French philosopher (born 1925)
* November 10 – Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian writer (executed, born 1941)
* November 13 – Mary Elizabeth Counselman, American author and poet (born 1911)
* November 16 – Robert H. Adleman, American novelist and historian (born 1919)
* November 17 – Marguerite Young, American novelist, poet and biographer (born 1908)
* November 20 – Robie Macauley, American writer and literary critic (born 1919)
* November 22 – Margaret St. Clair, American science fiction writer (born 1911)
* December 2 – Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist (born 1913)
* December 9 – Toni Cade Bambara, American writer (born 1939)
* December 30 – Heiner Müller, German dramatist (born 1929)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: Seamus Heaney
* Camões Prize: José Saramago

### Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Richard King, Kindling Does For Firewood
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Bruce Beaver, Anima and Other Poems
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Peter Boyle, Coming Home From the World
* Mary Gilmore Prize: Aileen Kelly, Coming Up for Light
* Miles Franklin Award: Helen Demidenko, The Hand That Signed the Paper

### Canada

* Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award
* Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
* See 1995 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
* Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Denise Chong, The Concubine's Children

### France

* Prix Goncourt: Andreï Makine, Le Testament français
* Prix Décembre: Jean Échenoz, Les Grandes Blondes
* Prix Médicis French: Vassilis Alexakis, La Langue maternelle and Andreï Makine, Le testament français
* Prix Médicis International: Alessandro Baricco, Châteaux de la colère

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Christopher Priest, The Prestige
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth
* Cholmondeley Award: U. A. Fanthorpe, Christopher Reid, C. H. Sisson, Kit Wright
* Eric Gregory Award: Colette Bryce, Sophie Hannah, Tobias Hill, Mark Wormald
* Newdigate prize: Antony Dunn
* Whitbread Book of the Year Award: Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum

### United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Sandy Solomon, Pears, Lake, Sun
* Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Maxine Kumin
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, William Maxwell
* Carnegie Medal: Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
* Compton Crook Award: Doranna Durgin, Dun Lady's Jess
* Hugo Award: Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
* Nebula Award: Robert Sawyer, The Terminal Experiment
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Horton Foote, The Young Man From Atlanta
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Philip Levine, The Simple Truth
* Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography: Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life
* Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction: Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
* Pulitzer Prize for History: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
* Wallace Stevens Award: James Tate
* Whiting Awards:
    Fiction: Michael Cunningham, Reginald McKnight, Matthew Stadler, Melanie Sumner
    Nonfiction: André Aciman, Lucy Grealy (nonfiction/poetry), Suzannah Lessard, Russ Rymer
    Poetry: James L. McMichael, Mary Ruefle

### Elsewhere

* New Zealand Book Award for Poetry: Michele Leggott, Dia
* Montana Book Award for Poetry: Michael Jackson, Pieces of Music
* Premio Nadal: Ignacio Carrión Hernández, Cruzar el Danubio
* Premio San Clemente: Xurxo Borrazás, Vicious