# 2017 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2017.

## Events

* March – Emulating Kerouac's On the Road, Ross Goodwin drives from New York to New Orleans with an artificial intelligence device in a laptop hooked up to various sensors, whose output it turns into words printed on rolls of thermal paper; the result is published unedited as 1 the Road in 2018.
* August – The Chinese crime novelist Liu Yongbiao is arrested and eventually sentenced to death for four murders committed 22 years before.
* August 30 – A hard disk drive containing unfinished work by the English comic fantasy novelist Sir Terry Pratchett (died 2015) is crushed by a steamroller on his instructions.
* October 5 - The Swedish Academy announce that the 2017 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to Kazuo Ishiguro.
* October – Tianjin Binhai Library opens in China.
* December – Kristen Roupenian's short story "Cat Person" is published in The New Yorker and becomes a viral phenomenon online, with more than 2.6 million hits.

## Anniversaries

* Tercentenary of the Aberbaijani poet Molla Panah Vagif's birth in 1717
* 600th anniversary of the death of the Turkic mystical poet Imadaddin Nasimi in 1417
* March 19 – Bicentenary of the Slovak writer Jozef Miloslav Hurban's birth
* May 8 – The American novelist Thomas Pynchon turns 80.
* June 18 – Centenary of the death of the Romanian literary critic and former prime minister Titu Maiorescu
* June 26 – 20th anniversary of the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (U.K. edition)
* July 12 – 200th birthday of Henry David Thoreau, author of Walden
* July 14 – Bicentenary of the early French salonnière Madame de Staël's death
* July 18 – Bicentenary of the novelist Jane Austen's death in 1817
* Nov 30 – 350th anniversary of the Anglo-Irish satirist Jonathan Swift's birth in 1667
* December 4 – Bicentenary of the birth of Nikoloz Baratashvili's in 1817, who introduced European style into Georgian literature.

## New books

Dates after each title indicate U.S. publication, unless otherwise indicated.

### Fiction

* Ayobami Adebayo – Stay With Me (March 2, UK)
* Paul Auster – 4 3 2 1 (January 31)
* Brunonia Barry – The Fifth Petal: a novel
* Darcey Bell – A Simple Favor (March 1)
* Dan Brown – Origin (October 3)
* Peter Carey – A Long Way From Home (October 30, Australia)
* J. M. Coetzee – The Schooldays of Jesus (February 21)
* Claire G. Coleman – Terra Nullius
* Curtis Dawkins – The Graybar Hotel (July 4)
* Didier Decoin – Le bureau des jardins et des étangs (The Office of Gardens and Ponds) (France)
* Steve Erickson – Shadowbahn
* Christine Féret-Fleury – La fille qui lisait dans le Métro (The Girl who Read on the Metro) (March 9, France)
* Karl Geary – Montpelier Parade (August 31)
* John Grisham – Camino Island (June 6)
* Mohsin Hamid – Exit West (March 2, UK)
* Catherine Hernandez - Scarborough
* Alan Hollinghurst – The Sparsholt Affair (September 26, UK)
* Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine (UK)
* N. K. Jemisin – The Stone Sky (August 15)
* Lisa Jewell – Then She Was Gone (July 27, UK)
* The Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty) – 2023 (August 23, UK)
* Ian McDonald – Luna: Wolf Moon (March 23, UK)
* Jon McGregor – Reservoir 13 (April 6, UK)
* Claude McKay (died 1948) – Amiable with Big Teeth: A Novel of the Love Affair Between the Communists and the Poor Black Sheep of Harlem (February 7; written 1941)
* Robert Menasse – Die Hauptstadt (The Capital) (Germany)
* Denise Mina – The Long Drop (March 2, UK)
* Fiona Mozley – Elmet (August 10, UK)
* Neel Mukherjee – A State of Freedom (July 6, UK)
* Timothy Ogene – The Day Ends Like Any Day (April 6, UK)
* James Patterson & Candice Fox – Never Never (January 16, US)
* Tim Pears – The Horseman (January, UK)
* Gwendoline Riley – First Love (February, UK)
* Sally Rooney – Conversations with Friends (June, UK)
* George Saunders – Lincoln in the Bardo (February 14)
* Rachel Seiffert – A Boy in Winter (June 1, UK)
* Kamila Shamsie – Home Fire (August 15, UK)
* Joss Sheldon – Money Power Love (October 7, UK)
* Elizabeth Strout – Anything is Possible (April 25)
* J. R. R. Tolkien (died 1973), edited by Christopher Tolkien – Beren and Lúthien (June 1, UK; original version written 1917)
* Zlatko Topčić
** Dagmar
** The Final Word (Zavrsna rijec)
* Éric Vuillard – The Order of the Day (L'Ordre du jour) (April 29, France)
* Jesmyn Ward – Sing, Unburied, Sing (September 5)
* Sarah Winman – Tin Man (July 27, UK)
* Kathleen Winter – Lost in September

### Children and young people

* Galia Bernstein – I Am a Cat (November, Australia, Singapore)
* Sarah Crossan – Moonrise (September 1, UK)
* Lissa Evans – Wed Wabbit (January 5, UK)
* Susie Ghahremani – Stack the Cats (USA)
* Connie Glynn – Undercover Princess (October 30, UK)
* Kiran Millwood Hargrave – The Island at the End of Everything (May 4, UK)
* Amanda Hocking – Freeks (January 3)
* Anna McQuinn – Lulu Gets a Cat
* Philip Pullman – La Belle Sauvage, first volume in The Book of Dust trilogy (October 19, UK)
* Katherine Rundell – The Explorer (August 10, UK)
* Angie Thomas – The Hate U Give (September 28)
* Jacqueline Wilson – Wave Me Goodbye (May 18, UK)

### Poetry

* Helen Dunmore (died June 5) – Inside the Wave (April 27, UK)
* Robert Macfarlane (illustrated by Jackie Morris) – The Lost Words: A Spell Book (October, UK)
* Sinéad Morrissey – On Balance (May 25)

### Drama

* Jez Butterworth – The Ferryman
* Inua Ellams – Barber Shop Chronicles

### Non-fiction

* Joan Didion – South and West
* Nathaniel Frank – Awakening: How Gays and Lesbians Brought Marriage Equality to America
* Howard W. French – Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power
* David Grann – Killers of the Flower Moon
* Paul Hawken – Drawdown (April 18)
* Michel Houellebecq – En présence de Schopenhauer (January 11, France)
* Christine Hyung-Oak Lee – Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember (February 14)
* Obi Kaufmann – The California Field Atlas (September 1)
* Roel Konijnendijk - Classical Greek Tactics
* Jamie Oliver – 5 Ingredients – Quick and Easy Food (August 24, UK)
* Walter Scheidel – The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality from the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
* Matt Taibbi – Insane Clown President (January 17)
* Hedi Yahmed – I Was in Raqqa (كنت في الرقة)

### Biography and memoirs

* Craig Brown – Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret (September 21, UK)
* Richard Ford – Between Them: Remembering My Parents (May 2)
* Adam Kay – This is Going to Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor (September 7, UK)
* Caroline Moorehead – A Bold and Dangerous Family: The Rossellis and the Fight Against Mussolini (June 15)
* Rebecca Stott – In the Days of Rain: a daughter, a father, a cult (June 1, UK)
* Stephen Westaby – Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table (February 9, UK)
* Xiaolu Guo – Once Upon a Time in the East (January 26)

## Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in literature" article:
* January 2 – John Berger, English novelist, painter, art critic and poet, 90 (born 1926)
* January 12 – William Peter Blatty, American author (The Exorcist), 89 (born 1928)
* January 25:
** Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian novelist and children's writer (The Bride Price, The Joys of Motherhood), 72 (born 1944)
** Harry Mathews, American novelist and poet, 86 (born 1930)
* January 29 – Howard Frank Mosher, American novelist (Where the Rivers Flow North), 74 (born 1942)
* January 30 - Teresa Amy, Uruguayan poet and translator, 66 (born 1950)
* February 1 – William Melvin Kelley, African-American novelist, 79 (born 1937)
* February 8 – Tom Raworth, English poet, 78 (born 1938)
* March 10 – Robert James Waller, American novelist (The Bridges of Madison County), 77 (b. 1939)
* March 16 – Torgny Lindgren, Swedish writer, 78 (born 1938)
* March 17 – Derek Walcott, Saint Lucian poet and playwright, Nobel Laureate in 1992, 87 (b. 1930)
* April 1 – Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet, 84 (b. 1933)
* May 1:
** Anatoly Aleksin, Russian writer and poet, 92
** Mohamed Talbi, Tunisian historian, 95
* May 24 – Denis Johnson, American poet, novelist (Tree of Smoke), and short story writer (Jesus' Son), 67 (born 1949).
* June 2
** Jaroslav Kořán, Czech translator, writer and politician, 77
** Barrie Pettman, English author, publisher and philanthropist, 73
** S. Abdul Rahman, Indian poet, 79
* June 4
** Juan Goytisolo, Spanish essayist, poet and novelist, 86
** Jack Trout, American marketer and author, 82
* June 5
** Helen Dunmore, English poet, novelist and children's writer, 64 (born 1952)
** Anna Jókai, Hungarian writer, 84
* June 8 – Naseem Khan, British journalist, 77
* June 12 – C. Narayana Reddy, Indian poet and writer, Jnanpith Awardee, 85
* June 27 – Michael Bond, English author (Paddington Bear), 91 (born 1926)
* June 28 – Bruce Stewart, New Zealand author and playwright, 80
* July 2
** Tony Bianchi, Welsh-language author, 65
** Jack Collom, American poet, essayist and poetry teacher, 85
** Abiola Irele, Nigerian literary critic, 81
** Fay Zwicky, Australian poet, 83
* July 5 – Irina Ratushinskaya, Russian poet, 63 (cancer)
* July 9
** Miep Diekmann, Dutch writer of children's literature, 92 (born 1925)
** Anton Nossik, Russian writer and internet entrepreneur, 51 (heart attack)
* July 10 – Peter Härtling, German writer and poet, 83
* September 23 – Harvey Jacobs, American author, 87
* November 20 – Amir Hamed, Uruguayan writer, essayist and translator, 55 (born 1962)
* November 23 – Božena Mačingová, Slovak writer, author of books for children and young adults (born 1922)
* December 28 – Sue Grafton, American mystery author, 77

## Awards

In alphabetical order of prize names:
* Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction: Naomi Alderman for The Power
* Baillie Gifford Prize: David France for How to Survive a Plague
* Booker Prize: George Saunders for Lincoln in the Bardo
* Caine Prize for African Writing: Bushra Elfadil, "The Story of the Girl Whose Bird Flew Away"
* Camões Prize: Manuel Alegre
* Costa Book Awards: Helen Dunmore (died June 5) for Inside the Wave (poetry)
* Danuta Gleed Literary Award: Kris Bertin, Bad Things Happen
* David Cohen Prize: Tom Stoppard
* Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Kai Cheng Thom
* Desmond Elliott Prize: Francis Spufford, Golden Hill
* DSC Prize for South Asian Literature:
* Dylan Thomas Prize: Fiona McFarlane for The High Places
* European Book Prize: David Van Reybrouck, Zink and, Raffaele Simone, Si la démocratie fait faillite
* Folio Prize: Hisham Matar for The Return
* German Book Prize: Robert Menasse for Die Hauptstadt
* Goldsmiths Prize: Nicola Barker for H(a)ppy
* Gordon Burn Prize: Denise Mina for The Long Drop
* Governor General's Award for English-language fiction: Joel Thomas Hynes, We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night
* Governor General's Award for French-language fiction: Christian Guay-Poliquin, Le Poids de la neige
* Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française:
* Hugo Award for Best Novel: N. K. Jemisin for The Obelisk Gate
* International Booker Prize: David Grossman for A Horse Walks Into a Bar
* International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Mohammed Hasan Alwan for A Small Death
* International Dublin Literary Award: José Eduardo Agualusa for A General Theory of Oblivion
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction:
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography:
* Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award:
* Lambda Literary Awards: Various categories, see 29th Lambda Literary Awards
* Miguel de Cervantes Prize:
* Miles Franklin Award: Josephine Wilson for Extinctions
* National Biography Award:
* National Book Award for Fiction:
* National Book Critics Circle Award:
* Newdigate Prize: Dominic Hand
* Nike Award:
* Nobel Prize in Literature: Kazuo Ishiguro
* PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Imbolo Mbue for Behold the Dreamers
* PEN Center USA Fiction Award:
* Premio Planeta de Novela:
* Premio Strega:
* Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing:
* Prix Goncourt:
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Colson Whitehead for The Underground Railroad
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Tyehimba Jess for Olio
* RBC Taylor Prize: Ross King for Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
* Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: David Chariandy, Brother
* Russian Booker Prize:
* Scotiabank Giller Prize: Michael Redhill, Bellevue Square
* Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings:
* Walter Scott Prize: Sebastian Barry for Days Without End
* W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction:
* Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award: Breyten Breytenbach