# 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.

## New books
### 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
* Candace Bushnell – Sex and the City
* 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
* Joan Didion – The Last Thing He Wanted
* 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 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