# 2003 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2003.

## Events

* February 12 – An invitation from the First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, for some poets to attend a conference at the White House is postponed when one of them, Sam Hamill, organizes a "Poets Against the War" group for poetry readings across the United States on the same date.
* February 15 – Anti-war protests occur in London. They are later used as the setting for Ian McEwan's 2005 novel Saturday.
* March – The University of Mosul library is damaged and looted during the Iraq War, but many volumes are removed for protection by staff.
* April 14 – The Iraq National Library and Archive is burned down during the Battle of Baghdad.
* April – Nicholas Hytner succeeds Sir Trevor Nunn as artistic director of London's Royal National Theatre.
* November 7 – UNESCO places among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity wayang kulit, a shadow puppet theatre and best known of the Indonesian wayang.

## New books
### Fiction

* Peter Ackroyd – The Clerkenwell Tales
* Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Purple Hibiscus
* Mitch Albom – The Five People You Meet in Heaven
* Monica Ali – Brick Lane
* Martin Amis – Yellow Dog
* Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake
* Paul Auster – Oracle Night
* Max Barry – Jennifer Government
* Greg Bear – Darwin's Children
* Frédéric Beigbeder – Windows on the World
* Hilari Bell – Fall of a Kingdom
* Thomas Berger – Best Friends
* Giles Blunt – The Delicate Storm
* Frank Brennan – Tampering with Asylum
* Dan Brown – The Da Vinci Code
* Angus Peter Campbell – An Oidhche Mus Do Sheol Sinn
* Lars Saabye Christensen – Maskeblomstfamilien
* Paulo Coelho – Eleven Minutes
* J. M. Coetzee – Elizabeth Costello
* Deborah Joy Corey – The Skating Pond
* Bernard Cornwell
** Sharpe's Havoc
** Sharpe's Christmas
** Heretic
* Douglas Coupland – Hey Nostradamus!
* Robert Crais – The Last Detective
* Julie E. Czerneda – Space, Inc.
* Jeffery Deaver – Twisted
* Don DeLillo – Cosmopolis
* Kate DiCamillo – The Tale of Despereaux
* Cory Doctorow
** A Place So Foreign and Eight More
** Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
* Gerard Donovan – Schopenhauer's Telescope
* Fernanda Eberstadt – The Furies
* Rodrigo Fresán – Jardines de Kensington
* Cornelia Funke – Inkheart
* Anna Gavalda – I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere (translation)
* William Gibson – Pattern Recognition
* Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen – Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War
* Jean-Christophe Grangé – L'Empire des loups
* John Grisham – The King of Torts
* Margaret Peterson Haddix – Among the Barons
* Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
* Pete Hamill – Forever
* Joanne Harris – Holy Fools
* Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire
* Victor Heck – The Asylum
** Vol 2 – The Violent Ward
** Vol 3 – The Quiet Ward
* Jennifer Haigh – Mrs. Kimble
* Zoë Heller – Notes on a Scandal
* Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
* Michel Houellebecq – Lanzarote
* Evan Hunter – The Frumious Bandersnatch
* Alan Judd – The Kaiser's Last Kiss
* N. M. Kelby – Theater of the Stars: A Novel of Physics and Memory
* Thomas Keneally – The Tyrant's Novel
* Greg Keyes – The Final Prophecy
* Stephen King – Wolves of the Calla
* Dean R. Koontz – The Face
* Dean R. Koontz – Odd Thomas
* Jhumpa Lahiri – The Namesake
* Dennis Lehane – Shutter Island
* Jonathan Lethem – The Fortress of Solitude
* James Luceno – The Unifying Force
* Steve Martini – The Arraignment
* Magnus Mills – The Scheme for Full Employment
* Paul Murray – An Evening of Long Goodbyes
* Julie Myerson – Something Might Happen
* Andrew Neiderman – The Baby Squad
* Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler's Wife
* Garth Nix – Mister Monday
* Chuck Palahniuk – Diary
* Christopher Paolini – Eragon
* Carolyn Parkhurst – The Dogs of Babel
* Per Petterson – Out Stealing Horses (Ut og stjæle hester)
* DBC Pierre – Vernon God Little
* Terry Pratchett
** Monstrous Regiment
** The Wee Free Men
* Jean Raspail – Les Royaumes de Borée
* Matthew Reilly – Scarecrow
* Nina Revoyr – Southland
* Tom Robbins – Villa Incognito
* J. Jill Robinson – Residual Desire
* Nick Sagan – Idlewild
* Matthew Sharpe – The Sleeping Father
* Wilbur Smith – Blue Horizon
* Olen Steinhauer – The Bridge of Sighs
* Neal Stephenson – Quicksilver (Vol. I of the Baroque Cycle)
* Matthew Stover – Shatterpoint
* Jonathan Stroud – The Amulet of Samarkand
* Anthony Swofford – Jarhead
* Miguel Sousa Tavares – Equador
* Adam Thirlwell – Politics
* Akira Toriyama (鳥山 明) – Toccio the Angel (Tenshi no Tocchio)
* Sergio Troncoso – The Nature of Truth
* Andrew Vachss – The Getaway Man
* Mario Vargas Llosa – The Way to Paradise (El paraíso en la otra esquina)
* Jo Walton – Tooth and Claw
* Irvine Welsh – Porno
* Tobias Wolff – Old School
* Roger Zelazny – Manna from Heaven (short stories)

### Children and young people

* David Almond – The Fire-Eaters
* Atsuko Asano – No. 6 (あさの あつこ)
* Cressida Cowell – How to Train Your Dragon (first in the eponymous series of 16 books)
* Madonna - The English Roses
* Elizabeth Laird – The Garbage King
* Jim Murphy – An American Plague: the true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793
* Jenny Nimmo – Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
* Tyne O'Connell – Pulling Princes
* Philip Reeve – Predator's Gold
* J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
* Lemony Snicket – The Slippery Slope
* Dugald Steer (with Helen Ward, Wayne Anderson, etc.) – Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons
* Mo Willems - Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (first in a series of 8 books)
* Ann Turnbull – No Shame, No Fear
* Kay Winters (with Barry Moser) – Voices of Ancient Egypt
* Yang Hongying (楊紅櫻) – Four Troublemakers (四个调皮蛋, first in the Mo's Mischief – 淘气包马小跳 – series of 8 books)
* Peter H. Reynolds - The Dot

### Drama

* Jordi Galceran – El mètode Grönholm (The Grönholm method)
* Richard Greenberg – The Violet Hour
* David Hare – The Permanent Way
* Kwame Kwei-Armah – Elmina's Kitchen
* Lynn Nottage – Intimate Apparel
* Mark O'Rowe – Crestfall
* Abhi Subedi – Agniko Katha

### Poetry

* Lavinia Greenlaw – Minsk
* Pope John Paul II – Roman Triptych. Meditations
* Dean Kalimniou – Kipos Esokleistos

### Non–fiction

* Banglapedia – National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
* Neal Bascomb – Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City
* Patricia Brown – A League Of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls
* Andrea Curtis – Into the Blue
* Richard Dawkins – A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love
* Gerina Dunwich – Dunwich's Guide to Gemstone Sorcery
* Jerry A. Eichenberger – Your Pilot's License
* Marc Ferro – Le Livre noir du colonialisme
* John Fowles – The Journals – Volume 1
* Anna Funder – Stasiland
* Mattias Gardell – Gods of the Blood
* A. C. Grayling – What Is Good?: The Search for the Best Way to Live
* Christopher Hitchens – A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq
* Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
* Bethany McLean – The Smartest Guys in the Room
* Don Miller – Blue Like Jazz
* Michael Moore – Dude, Where's My Country?
* Azar Nafisi – Reading Lolita in Tehran
* Alanna Nash – The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
* Daniel Okrent – Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center
* Chuck Palahniuk – Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
* Rudy Ruiz – ¡ADELANTE!: una guía personal del éxito para usted y su familia (a guide for success for immigrants)
* Jane Smiley – Charles Dickens
* Clark Ashton Smith – Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
* David Starkey – Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
* Lynne McTaggart – The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
* Amy Tan – The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings
* Lynne Truss – Eats, Shoots & Leaves
* Penny Wolfson – Moonrise

## Films

* The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

## Deaths

* January 5 – Jean Kerr, American author and playwright (born 1923)
* January 21 – Paul Haines, American-born Canadian poet and songwriter (born 1933)
* February 16 – Aleksandar Tišma, Serbian novelist (born 1924)
* February 26 – Quentin Keynes, English explorer, writer and filmmaker (born 1921)
* March 11 – Brian Cleeve, English-born Irish writer and broadcaster (born 1921)
* March 12 – Howard Fast, American novelist (born 1914)
* March 14 – Lucian Boz, Romanian and Australian literary critic (born 1908)
* April 3 – Michael Kelly, American journalist (born 1957)
* April 7 – Cecile de Brunhoff, French children's writer (born 1903)
* June 21
** George Axelrod, American dramatist and screenwriter (born 1922)
** Leon Uris, American novelist (born 1924)
* July 6 – Kathleen Raine, English poet, scholar, and translator (born 1908)
* July 10 – Winston Graham, English novelist (born 1908)
* July 14 – Éva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer (born 1926)
* July 15 – Roberto Bolaño, Chilean-born fiction writer (born 1953)
* July 16 – Carol Shields, American-born Canadian novelist (breast cancer; born 1935)
* September 3 – Alan Dugan, American poet (born 1923)
* September 12 – Profira Sadoveanu, Romanian journalist, memoirist, biographer, editor and translator (born 1906)
* September 24 – Derek Prince, English biblical scholar, author and radio presenter (born 1915)
* September 25 – Edward Said, Palestinian-American literary critic (born 1935)
* November 9 – Alan Davidson, Northern Irish historian and food writer (born 1924)
* December 3 – Sita Ram Goel, Indian historian, publisher and author (born 1921)
* December 11 – Ahmadou Kourouma, Ivorian writer (born 1927)
* December 12 – Fadwa Toukan, Palestinian poet (born 1917)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: J. M. Coetzee

### Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Nicholas Angel, Drown Them in the Sea
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Emma Lew, Anything the Landlord Touches
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Jill Jones, Screens Jets Heaven
* Miles Franklin Award: Alex Miller, Journey to the Stone Country

### Canada

* Giller Prize: M. G. Vassanji – The In-Between World of Vikram Lall
* See 2003 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of the winners of those awards.
* Griffin Poetry Prize: Margaret Avison, Concrete and Wild Carrot and Paul Muldoon, Moy sand and gravel
* Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Alison Watt, The Last Island

### Sweden

* Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award: Maurice Sendak and Christine Nöstlinger

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: DBC Pierre, Vernon God Little
* Caine Prize for African Writing: Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, "Weight of Whispers"
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Jennifer Donnelly, A Gathering Light
* Cholmondeley Award: Ciarán Carson, Michael Donaghy, Lavinia Greenlaw, Jackie Kay
* David Cohen Prize: Beryl Bainbridge, Thom Gunn
* Eric Gregory Award: Jen Hadfield, Zoë Brigley, Paul Batchelor, Olivia Cole, Sasha Dugdale, Anna Woodford
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Janet Browne, Charles Darwin: Volume 2 – The Power of Place
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew O'Hagan, Personality
* Orange Prize for Fiction: Valerie Martin, Property
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: U. A. Fanthorpe
* Whitbread Book of The Year Award: Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: A Novel

### United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: David Shumate, High Water Mark
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry: W. S. Merwin
* Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Julie Sheehan, "Brown-headed Cow Birds"
* Bollingen Prize for Poetry: Adrienne Rich
* Brittingham Prize in Poetry: Brian Teare, The Room Where I Was Born
* Compton Crook Award: Patricia Bray, Devlin's Luck
* Frost Medal: Lawrence Ferlinghetti
* Hugo Award: Robert J. Sawyer, Hominids
* Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2003 Lambda Literary Awards
* National Book Award for Fiction: Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
* National Book Critics Circle Award: Edward P. Jones, The Known World
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Avi, Crispin: The Cross of Lead
* PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Sabina Murray, The Caprices
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex
* Wallace Stevens Award: Richard Wilbur
* Whiting Awards:
    Fiction: Courtney Angela Brkic (fiction/nonfiction), Alexander Chee, Agymah Kamau, Ann Pancake, Lewis Robinson, Jess Row
    Nonfiction: Christopher Cokinos, Trudy Dittmar
    Plays: Sarah Ruhl
    Poetry: Major Jackson

### Other

* Camões Prize: Rubem Fonseca
* International Dublin Literary Award: Orhan Pamuk My Name is Red
* Premio Nadal: Andrés Trapiello, Los amigos del crimen perfecto
* SAARC Literary Award: Tissa Abeysekara, Laxman Gaikwad