2014 In Literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 2014.

Events

• January – Parts of two previously unknown poems by Greek poet Sappho are discovered on ancient papyrus.^[1] This news is being reported by multiple news sources by the end of the month.^[2][3][4]
• March 6 – Joseph Boyden's novel The Orenda wins the 2014 edition of Canada Reads.^[5]
• April 24 – Writers including Mark Haddon and Mary Beard join a campaign against a ruling that stops U.K. prison inmates being sent books.^[6]
• May 22 – A translation of Beowulf by J. R. R. Tolkien made in 1926 is first published^[7] (his essay On Translating Beowulf had been published in 1940).
• November 25 – Discovery of a previously unknown copy of the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays (1623) in the public library at Saint-Omer in northern France is announced.^[8]

Anniversaries

• 28 January – On this day 75 years ago, W. B. Yeats died in Menton, France.^[9]
• 5 February – William Burroughs was born in 1914 (100th Anniversary)^[10]
• 21 February – Christopher Marlowe's 450th birthday celebrated (may or may not be his birthday)^[9]
• 1 March – On this date 100 years ago, Ralph Ellison (author of Invisible Man) was born.^[9]
• 9 March – Charles Bukowski died 20 years ago today (1994).^[11]
• 10 March – On this day 50 years ago, John Updike receives the National Book Award for The Centaur.^[12]
• 31 March – 100th anniversary of the birth of the Nobel Prize-winning Mexican poet Octavio Paz in 1914.^[13][14]
• 12 April – The novel Sophie's Choice by William Styron published 35 years ago today.
• 4 April – Marguerite Duras was born in 1914 (100th Anniversary)^[9]
• 14 April – On this day 75 years ago, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck was published.^[9]
• 16 April – Ralph Ellison dies on this date 20 years ago in 1994. (see March 1 above for Ellison links)
• 18 April - On this day 40 years ago (1974) the first printing of J. M. Coetzee's debut novel Dusklands appeared in hardback.^[15]
• 23 April – It is assumed that William Shakespeare was born on this day 450 years ago (because records show that he was baptised on 26 April).^[9]
• 26 April – The centenary of Bernard Malamud’s birth (April 26, 1914).^[16]
• May – The 100th anniversary of Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons.^[17][18]
• 16 June – This year's Bloomsday celebration will also mark the 100th anniversary of the publication (June 1914) of Joyce's Dubliners.^[9]
• 21 July – Ernest Hemingway is born on this day 115 years ago.^[19]
• 21 September – the 50th anniversary of the publication of Herzog by Saul Bellow, the second of his three National Book Award-winning novels.^[20]
• 7 July – Sir Walter Scott's debut novel, Waverley, was published (anonymously) 200 years ago today.^[9]
• 22 September – Alain-Fournier died in action in northern France 100 years ago today, just a year after the publication of his only novel, Le Grand Meaulnes.^[9]
• 27 October – On this date 100 years ago, Dylan Thomas was born.^[9]
• 18 November – Margaret Atwood celebrates her 75th birthday today.^[9]
• 2 December –The Marquis de Sade died 200 years ago today.^[9]

Awards

• Akutagawa Prize: Hiroko Oyamada for Ana (Hole) and Tomoka Shibasaki for Haru No Niwa (Spring Garden)
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
• Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride^[21]
• Camões Prize: Alberto da Costa e Silva
• Costa Book of the Year: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald^[22]
• Danuta Gleed Literary Award: Paul Carlucci, The Secret Life of Fission^[23]
• Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Tamai Kobayashi^[24]
• Desmond Elliott Prize: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride^[25]
• DSC Prize for South Asian Literature: Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer by Cyrus Mistry^[26]
• Dylan Thomas Prize: To Rise Again at a Decent Hour by Joshua Ferris^[27]
• [28]
• German Book Prize:
• Goldsmiths Prize: How to Be Both by Ali Smith^[29]
• Gordon Burn Prize: The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth^[30]
• Governor General's Award for English-language fiction: Thomas King, The Back of the Turtle^[31]
• Governor General's Award for French-language fiction: Andrée A. Michaud, Bondrée^[31]
• Governor General's Awards, other categories: See 2014 Governor General's Awards.
• Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française: Adrien Bosc, for Constellation
• International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi^[32]
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The Sound of Things Falling
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction:
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography:
• Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award: A Girl Is a Half-formed Thing by Eimear McBride^[33]
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 26th Lambda Literary Awards.
• Man Booker Prize: The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan^[34]
• Miles Franklin Award: All The Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld^[35]
• National Biography Award: The Ambitions of Jane Franklin: Victorian Lady Adventurer by Alison Alexander^[36]
• National Book Award for Fiction: to Redeployment by Phil Klay^[37]
• National Book Critics Circle Award:
• Nobel Prize in Literature: to Patrick Modiano^[38]
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
• Premio Planeta de Novela:
• Premio Strega:
• Prix Goncourt:
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt^[39]
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: 3 Sections by Vijay Seshadri^[40][41]
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Miriam Toews, All My Puny Sorrows^[42]
• Russian Booker Prize:
• Samuel Johnson Prize: H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald^[43]
• Scotiabank Giller Prize: Sean Michaels, Us Conductors^[44]
• Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings: Ko Un^[45]
• Walter Scott Prize: An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris^[46]

Books

Fiction

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

• Jacob M. Appel: Scouting for the Reaper (February 15)
• Margaret Atwood: Stone Mattress: Nine Tales (September 16)
• Ceridwen Dovey: Only the Animals (April 23)
• Marlon James: A Brief History of Seven Killings (October 2)
• Thomas King: The Back of the Turtle
• Stephen King: Mr. Mercedes (June 3), Revival (November 11)
• Sean Michaels: Us Conductors (Canada, April 8)
• Karen Miller: The Falcon Throne (September)
• Haruki Murakami: Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage (translation) (August 12)
• Rick Riordan: The Blood of Olympus (October 7)
• Ali Smith: How to Be Both (UK August 28)
• Miriam Toews: All My Puny Sorrows

Young adult fiction

• Zoe Sugg, Girl Online (UK November 25)

Non-fiction

• Winifred Phillips, A Composer's Guide to Game Music
• Philip Lymbery and Isabel Oakeshott, Farmageddon
• Helen Macdonald, H is for Hawk (UK July)

Poetry

See: 2014 in poetry

New drama

• Mike Bartlett, King Charles III

Deaths

Birth years link to the corresponding "[year] in literature" article:

January – June

• January 14 – Juan Gelman, 83 (born 1930), Argentine poet who published more than twenty books of poetry between 1956 and his death. He received the Cervantes Prize in 2007, the most important in Spanish literature.
• January 28 – Nigel Jenkins, 64 (born 1949) Welsh poet, journalist, and geographer
• January 29 – Hashem Shabani, 32, Iranian poet (hanged).
• February 18 – Mavis Gallant, 91 (born 1923), Canadian writer best known for her short stories, who resided most of her life in Paris. Gallant received numerous honors in her lifetime, including Companion of the Order of Canada (1993).^[47]
• March 2 – Justin Kaplan, 88 (1925), American writer and editor. He was best known as a biographer, particularly of Samuel Clemens, Lincoln Steffens, and Walt Whitman.^[48]
• April 5 – Peter Matthiessen, 86 (born 1927), American novelist, naturalist and wilderness writer. A co-founder of the literary magazine The Paris Review and a three-time National Book Award-winner. He was also a prominent environmental activist. His nonfiction featured nature and travel – notably The Snow Leopard (1978) – or American Indian issues and history – notably a detailed and controversial study of the Leonard Peltier case, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (1983). In 2008, at age 81, Matthiessen received the National Book Award for Fiction for Shadow Country, a one-volume, 890-page revision of his three novels set in frontier Florida that had been published in the 1990s.^[49][50][51]
• April 10
  • Doris Pilkington Garimara, born Nugi Garimara, 77 (born 1937), Aboriginal novelist, known for her book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence, which was turned into a movie.^[52]
  • Sue Townsend, 68 (born 1946), English comic novelist and playwright.
• April 17 – Gabriel García Márquez, 87 (born 1927), Colombian Nobel laureate and creator of One Hundred Years of Solitude—considered one of the most influential novels of the 20th century.^[53]
• April 20 – Alistair MacLeod, 77 (born 1936), Canadian writer behind No Great Mischief, which won the Dublin International Literary Prize.^[54][55]
• May 6 – Farley Mowat, 92 (born 1921), Canadian author and environmentalist who achieved fame with his books on the Canadian north, such as People of the Deer (1952) and Never Cry Wolf (1963). The latter, an account of his experiences with wolves in the Arctic, was made into a film of the same name released in 1983.^[56]
• May 28
  • Maya Angelou, 86 (born 1928), American author (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings), poet ("On the Pulse of Morning") and civil rights activist.^[57]
  • Oscar Dystel, 101 (born 1912), American paperback publisher.
• June 19 – Josephine Pullein-Thompson, 90 (born 1924), English children's novelist.
• June 22 – Felix Dennis, 67 (born 1947), English publisher and poet.^[58]
• June 25 – Ana María Matute, 88 (born 1925), Spanish writer awarded the Miguel de Cervantes Prize.^[59]
• June 29 – Dermot Healy, 66 (born 1947), Irish poet, playwright, short story writer, memoirist and novelist.^[60]

July – December

• July 4 – C. J. Henderson, 62, American author and critic
• July 13 – Nadine Gordimer, 90, South African writer (The Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, July's People) and anti-apartheid activist, Nobel Prize laureate in Literature (1991).^[61]
• July 20 - Thomas Berger, 89, American writer of 23 novels including Little Big Man and Neighbors.
• August 1 – Jan Roar Leikvoll, 40, Norwegian novelist (brain tumour)
• August 2
  • Billie Letts, 73, American novelist
  • James Thompson, 49, American-Finnish author
• September 4
  • Orunamamu, American-Canadian author, storyteller and educator, 93 (born 1921)
  • Edgar Steele, American lawyer and author, 69 (born 1945)
• September 21 – Linda Griffiths, 60, Canadian playwright^[62]
• September 24 – Hugh C. Rae (Jessica Stirling, etc.), Scottish novelist (born 1935)
• November 27 – P. D. James, 94 (born 1920), English crime writer^[63]
• November 29 - Mark Strand, 80 (born 1934), Canadian-born American poet and writer, United States Poet Laureate (1990–1991)^[64]
• November 30 -
  • Radwa Ashour, 68 (born 1946), Egyptian writer and academic^[65]
  • Kent Haruf, 71 (born 1943), American novelist (Plainsong)^[66]
• December 3 - Vicente Leñero, 81 (born 1933), Mexican writer and journalist^[67]
• December 12 - Norman Bridwell, 86, American author and illustrator, created Clifford the Big Red Dog

See also

References

External links

• http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/01/2014-books-year-ahead
• Most popular 2014 book articles viewed on WorldHeritage, with user comments on traffic jumps - The latest statistics can be found on Wikitop