# 1992 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1992.

## Events

* July – The Goosebumps series of children's horror fiction, penned by R. L. Stine, is first published in the United States.
* August – An attempt is made to set fire to the National Library of Abkhazia in Sukhumi during the War in Abkhazia by Georgian forces.
* August 25 – The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina is annihilated during the Siege of Sarajevo by the Army of Republika Srpska.
* September – Michael Ondaatje's historiographic metafiction The English Patient is published in Canada. It will win The Golden Man Booker in 2018.

## New books
### Fiction

* Ben Aaronovitch – Transit
* Tariq Ali – Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree
* Paul Auster – Leviathan
* Iain Banks – The Crow Road
* Clive Barker – The Thief of Always
* Julian Barnes – The Porcupine
* Greg Bear – Anvil of Stars
* Thomas Berger – Meeting Evil
* Louis de Bernières – The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman
* James P. Blaylock – Lord Kelvin's Machine
* Pascal Bruckner – The Divine Child
* A. S. Byatt – Morpho Eugenia
* Roger Caron – Dreamcaper
* Andrew Cartmel – Cat's Cradle: Warhead
* Patrick Chamoiseau – Texaco
* Paulo Coelho – The Valkyries
* Michael Connelly – The Black Echo
* Hugh Cook
** The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster
** The Worshippers and the Way
* Paul Cornell – Love and War
* Bernard Cornwell
** Sharpe's Devil
** Scoundrel
* Douglas Coupland – Shampoo Planet
* Mia Couto – Sleepwalking Land (Terra Sonâmbula)
* Robert Crais – Lullaby Town
* L. Sprague de Camp and Christopher Stasheff – The Enchanter Reborn
* Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women Who Run with the Wolves
* Elena Ferrante – Troubling Love (L'amore molesto
* Tibor Fischer – Under the Frog
* Leon Forrest – Divine Days
* John Gardner – Death Is Forever
* Neil Gaiman – The Sandman: Season of Mists (graphic novel; volume 4 of The Sandman series)
* Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean – Signal to Noise (graphic novel)
* Cristina García – Dreaming in Cuban
* Mark Gatiss – Nightshade
* Ann Granger – Cold in the Earth
* Alasdair Gray – Poor Things
* John Grisham – The Pelican Brief
* Hella Haasse – Heren van de thee (The Tea Lords)
* Victor Headley – Yardie
* Andrew Hunt – Cat's Cradle: Witch Mark
* Simon Ings – Hot Head
* P. D. James – The Children of Men
* Denis Johnson – Jesus' Son (short story collection)
* John Kessel – Meeting in Infinity
* Stephen King
** Dolores Claiborne
** Gerald's Game
* Patrick McCabe – The Butcher Boy
* Cormac McCarthy – All the Pretty Horses (book 1 of The Border Trilogy)
* Val McDermid – Dead Beat
* Ian McEwan – Black Dogs
* Terry McMillan – Waiting to Exhale
* Javier Marías – A Heart So White (Corazón tan blanco)
* Andrés L. Mateo – La Balada de Alfonsina Bairán
* Rohinton Mistry – Tales from Firozsha Baag
* Caitlin Moran – The Chronicles of Narmo
* Toni Morrison – Jazz
* Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient
* Ellis Peters – The Holy Thief
* Marc Platt – Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible
* Terry Pratchett
** Lords and Ladies
** Small Gods
* Anne Rice – The Tale of the Body Thief
* Mordecai Richler – Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!
* Jennifer Roberson – Lady of the Forest
* Robert Schneider – Schlafes Bruder
* Patricia Schonstein – A Time of Angels
* W. G. Sebald – The Emigrants (Die Ausgewanderten: Vier lange Erzählungen)
* Gail Sheehy – Silent Passage
* Sidney Sheldon – The Stars Shine Down
* Michael Slade – Cutthroat
* Danielle Steel
** Jewels
** Mixed Blessings
* Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash
* Adam Thorpe – Ulverton
* Sue Townsend – The Queen and I
* Rose Tremain – Sacred Country
* Barry Unsworth – Sacred Hunger
* John Updike – Memories of the Ford Administration
* Gore Vidal – Live from Golgotha: The Gospel According to Gore Vidal
* Vernor Vinge – A Fire Upon the Deep
* Robert James Waller – The Bridges of Madison County
* Connie Willis – Doomsday Book
* Timothy Zahn – Dark Force Rising
* Roger Zelazny and Thomas Thurston Thomas – Flare
* Juan Eduardo Zúñiga
** El último día del mundo (The last day of the world)
** Misterios de las noches y los días (Mysteries of the nights and days; short stories)

### Children and young people

* Pamela Allen – Belinda
* Chris Van Allsburg – The Widow's Broom
* Gillian Cross – The Great Elephant Chase
* Garry Disher – The Bamboo Flute
* Anne Fine – Flour Babies
* Jamila Gavin – The Wheel of Surya (first in the Surya trilogy)
* Rumer Godden
** Great Grandfather's House
** Listen to the Nightingale
* Virginia Hamilton (with Jerry Pinkney) – Drylongso
* William Mayne – Low Tide
* Gerald McDermott – Zomo The Rabbit: A Trickster Tale From West Africa
* Hilary McKay – The Exiles
* Michael Morpurgo – Waiting for Anya
* Barry Moser – Polly Vaughn: A Traditional British Ballad
* Jim Murphy – The Long Road to Gettysburg
* Barbara Park – Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus (first in the Junie B. Jones series)
* Marcus Pfister – The Rainbow Fish (Der Regenbogenfisch)
* Gloria Jean Pinkney (with Jerry Pinkney) – Back Home
* Marjorie W. Sharmat (with Marc Simont) – Nate the Great and the Stolen Base
* Ulf Stark – Can You Whistle, Johanna? (Kan du vissla Johanna?)
* Christopher Tolkien (with J. R. R. Tolkien and Alan Lee) – Sauron Defeated
* Judith Vigna – Black Like Kyra, White Like Me
* Martin Waddell – Owl Babies
* Nancy Willard (with Barry Moser) – Beauty and the Beast
* Douglas Wood – Old Turtle
* Susan Meddaugh – Martha Speaks

### Drama

* Herb Gardner – Conversations with My Father
* Peter Handke – Die Stunde, da wir nichts voneinander wußten (The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other)
* David Mamet – Oleanna
* Louis Nowra – Così
* Zlatko Topčić – Musa And The Goat (radio version)
* Michael Wall – Women Laughing
* Peter Whelan – The School of Night

### Poetry

* Ben Okri – An African Elegy

### Non-fiction

* Nelson Algren (died 1981) – America Eats (travel book, written 1930s)
* Karen Armstrong – Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet
* Bill Bryson – Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
* Linda Colley – Britons: Forging the Nation 1707–1837
* Esther Delisle – The Traitor and the Jew (Le Traître et le Juif: Lionel Groulx, le Devoir et le délire du nationalisme d'extrême droite dans la province de Québec, 1929–1939)
* Daniel Dennett – Consciousness Explained
* Joan Didion – After Henry
* Eamon Duffy – The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400 to c. 1580
* Gerina Dunwich – Secrets of Love Magick
* Christiane Éluère – The Celts: First Masters of Europe
* John Gray – Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
* Elizabeth Hay – The Only Snow in Havana
* Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch
* Charles Jennings – Up North
* Neil Lyndon – No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism
* Andrew Morton – Diana: Her True Story
* Mark E. Neely Jr. – The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties
* Liza Potvin – White Lies (for My Mother)
* Léon Werth (died 1955) – 33 Jours (written 1940)
* Michael Jackson – Dancing the Dream

### Anthologies

* Margaret Busby (ed.) – Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Words and Writings by Women of African Descent from the Ancient Egyptian to the Present

## Births

* March 4 – Gaurav Sharma, Indian author
* April 14 – Naoise Dolan, Irish novelist
* August 12 – Naoki Higashida, Japanese autistic author
* September 18 – Jidanun Lueangpiansamut, Thai writer
* October 5 – Rupi Kaur, Indian-born Canadian poet, illustrator, photographer, and author
* October 30 – Édouard Louis, French writer
* November 11 – Aya Mansour, Iraqi poet, writer, and journalist

## Deaths

* January 4 – Alejandro Carrión, Ecuadorian poet and journalist (born 1915)
* January 9 – Bill Naughton, Irish-born English playwright and novelist (born 1910)
* January 4 – John Sparrow, English literary scholar (born 1906)
* January 14 – Irakli Abashidze, Georgian poet, literary scholar and politician (born 1909)
* January 28 – Dora Birtles, Australian novelist, poet and children's writer (born 1903)
* February 10 – Alex Haley, African-American writer (born 1921)
* February 16
** Angela Carter, English novelist (lung cancer, born 1940)
** George MacBeth, Scottish poet and novelist (motor neurone disease, born 1932)
* April 4 – Vintilă Horia, Romanian writer (born 1915)
* April 6 – Isaac Asimov, American science fiction author (born 1920)
* April 21 – Väinö Linna, Finnish novelist (born 1920)
* April 28 – Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck), American novelist (born 1918)
* May 22 – Elizabeth David, English cookery writer (born 1913)
* July 6 – Mary Q. Steele, American novelist (born 1922)
* July 22 – Reginald Bretnor, American science fiction writer (born 1911)
* July 23 – Robert Liddell, English biographer, novelist and poet (born 1908)
* August 4 – Seichō Matsumoto, Japanese mystery writer and journalist (born 1909)
* August 29 – Mary Norton, English children's writer (born 1903)
* September 5 – Fritz Leiber, American writer of fantasy and science fiction (born 1910)
* November 7 – Richard Yates, American novelist and short-story writer (emphysema, born 1926)
* November 17 – Audre Lorde, American poet, writer and feminist (born 1934)
* December 22 – Ted Willis, English TV dramatist (born 1914)
* December 25 – Monica Dickens, English novelist (born 1915)
* December 27 – Kay Boyle, American writer, educator and activist (born 1902)

## Awards

* Nobel Prize in Literature: Derek Walcott
* Camões Prize: Vergílio Ferreira

### Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Fotini Epanomitis, The Mule's Foal
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Harris, Jane, Interlinear and Other Poems
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Elizabeth Riddell, Selected Poems
* Mary Gilmore Prize: Alison Croggon, This is the Stone
* Miles Franklin Award: Tim Winton, Cloudstreet

### Canada

* See 1992 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
* Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Marie Wadden, Nitassinan: The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland

### France

* Prix Goncourt: Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco
* Prix Décembre: Henri Thomas, La Chasse au trésor and Roger Grenier, Regardez la neige qui tombe
* Prix Médicis French: Michel Rio, Tlacuilo
* Prix Médicis International: Louis Begley, Une éducation polonaise

### United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient and Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
* Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Anne Fine, Flour Babies
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Rose Tremain, Sacred Country
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe
* Cholmondeley Award: Allen Curnow, Donald Davie, Carol Ann Duffy, Roger Woddis
* Eric Gregory Award: Jill Dawson, Hugh Dunkerley, Christopher Greenhalgh, Marita Maddah, Stuart Paterson, Stuart Pickford
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Kathleen Raine
* Whitbread Best Book Award: Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing!
* The Sunday Express Book of the Year: Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
* Forward Prizes for Poetry (first awards): Thom Gunn, The Man with Night Sweats (collection); Simon Armitage, Kid (first collection); Jackie Kay, "Black Bottom" (single poem)

### United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Hunt Hawkins, The Domestic Life
* Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Sam Shepard
* Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Louise Glück for Ararat, and Mark Strand for The Continuous Life
* Compton Crook Award: Carol Severance, Reefsong
* Frost Medal: Adrienne Rich / David Ignatow
* National Book Award for Fiction: to All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
* National Book Critics Circle Award: to Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
* Nebula Award: Connie Willis, Doomsday Book
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Shiloh
* PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Mao II by Don DeLillo
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Tate, Selected Poems
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Robert Schenkkan, The Kentucky Cycle
* Whiting Awards:
    Fiction: R.S. Jones, J. S. Marcus, Damien Wilkins
    Nonfiction: Eva Hoffman, Katha Pollitt (poetry/nonfiction)
    Plays: Suzan-Lori Parks, Keith Reddin, José Rivera
    Poetry: Roger Fanning, Jane Mead

### Elsewhere

* Premio Nadal: Alejandro Gándara, Ciegas esperanzas