1998 in literature

The year 1998 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• March 5 - Tennessee Williams' 1938 play, Not About Nightingales, receives its stage première.
• November 18 - Alice McDermott wins the National Book Award with her novel Charming Billy.
• Following the death of Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, there is a gap of several months before a successor is appointed.

New books

• Tariq Ali - The Book of Saladin
• Aaron Allston
  • Iron Fist
  • Wraith Squadron
• Hanan al-Shaykh - I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops
• Martin Amis - Heavy Water and Other Stories (most stories previously published)
• Beryl Bainbridge - Master Georgie
• Iain M. Banks - Inversions
• Julian Barnes - England, England
• Greg Bear
  • Dinosaur Summer
  • Foundation and Chaos
• Raymond Benson - The Facts of Death
• Alfred Bester and Roger Zelazny - Psychoshop
• Robert Bloch - Flowers from the Moon and Other Lunacies
• Driss Chraibi - Muhammad
• Mary Higgins Clark - All Through the Night
• Tom Clancy - Rainbow Six
• Paulo Coelho - Veronika Decides to Die
• Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Triumph
• Patricia Cornwell - Point of Origin
• Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a Coma
• Ann C. Crispin - Rebel Dawn
• Michael Cunningham - The Hours
• Nelson DeMille - Plum Island (novel)
• August Derleth
  • The Final Adventures of Solar Pons
  • In Lovecraft's Shadow
• Allan W. Eckert - Return to Hawk's Hill
• Diana Gabaldon - Hellfire
• Neil Gaiman - Smoke and Mirrors (most of the contained stories previously published)
• Andrew Greeley - A Midwinter's Tale
• John Grisham - The Street Lawyer
• Ha Jin - Waiting
• Tomson Highway - Kiss of the Fur Queen
• Nick Hornby - About a Boy
• John Irving - A Widow for One Year
• K. W. Jeter
  • The Mandalorian Armor
  • Slave Ship
• Wayne Johnston - The Colony of Unrequited Dreams
• Stephen King - Bag of Bones
• Dean R. Koontz - Seize the Night
• Ian McEwan - Amsterdam
• Roy MacLaren - African Exploits
• Steve Martin - Pure Drivel
• Carol Matas - Greater Than Angels
• Toni Morrison - Paradise
• Alice Munro - The Love of a Good Woman
• Haruki Murakami - The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
• Tim O'Brien - Tomcat in Love
• Tom Perrotta - Election
• Terry Pratchett
  • Carpe Jugulum
  • The Last Continent
• David Adams Richards - The Bay of Love and Sorrows
• J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
• Louis Sachar - Holes
• Michael Slade - Shrink aka Primal Scream
• Michael Stackpole - I, Jedi
• Danielle Steel
  • The Klone and I
  • The Long Road Home
  • Mirror Image
• Thomas Sullivan - The Martyring
• Andrew Vachss - Safe House
• Connie Willis - To Say Nothing of the Dog
• A. N. Wilson - Dream Children
• Tom Wolfe - A Man in Full
• Timothy Zahn - Vision of the Future
• José Luis Rodríguez Pittí - Crónica de invisibles

New drama

• Edward Albee - The Play About the Baby
• Michael Frayn - Copenhagen
• David Hare - The Blue Room
• Marius von Mayenburg - Fireface (Feuergesicht)

Poetry

Non-fiction

• Bill Bryson - Notes from a Big Country
• Peter Cannon (editor) - Lovecraft Remembered
• Esther Delisle - Myths, Memories & Lies: Quebec's Intelligentsia and the Fascist Temptation, 1939-1960 (Essais sur l'imprégnation fasciste au Québec)
• Gerina Dunwich - Wicca A to Z
• Amanda Foreman - Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
• Jonathan Friedland - Bring Home the Revolution
• John Fowles - Wormholes - Essays and Occasional Writings
• Alan I. Marcus - Building Western Civilization: From the Advent of Writing to the Age of Steam -
• John Pilger - Hidden Agendas
• Jules Witcover, David Halberstam - The Year the Dream Died: Revisiting 1968 in America
• Jesse Lee Kercheval, Space (memoir)
• Charlotte Allen, The Human Christ: The Search For The Historical Jesus

Births

Deaths

• January 2 - Frank Muir, comedy writer
• January 11 - John Wells, satirical writer
• January 23 - John Forbes, Australian poet
• January 27 - Geoffrey Trease, historical novelist
• February 7 - Lawrence Sanders, author
• February 17 - Ernst Jünger, novelist and war memoirist
• March 15 - Dr Benjamin Spock, childcare expert
• April 11 - Francis Durbridge, playwright
• April 19 - Octavio Paz, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature
• April 27 - Pauline Réage, author
• April 27 - Carlos Castaneda, author
• May 9 - Nat Perrin, comedy writer
• June 10 - Hammond Innes, novelist
• June 11 - Dame Catherine Cookson, bestselling novelist
• July 1 - Martin Seymour-Smith, biographer
• July 5 - Johnny Speight, comedy writer
• July 9 - Ian Wallace, science fiction author
• July 14 - Miroslav Holub, Czech poet
• July 23 - John Hopkins, film and television writer
• September 28 - Eric Malling, journalist
• October 22 - Eric Ambler, novelist
• October 28 - Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of Great Britain
• November 8 - Rumer Godden, novelist

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: José Saramago

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Jennifer Kremmer, Pegasus in the Suburbs
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Coral Hull, Broken Land
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: No awards were presented this year
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Emma Lew The Wild Reply

Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award: Talya Rubin
• See 1998 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Alice Munro: The Love of a Good Woman

France

• Prix Décembre: Michel Houellebecq, Les Particules élémentaires
• Prix Goncourt: Paule Constant, Confidence pour confidence
• Prix Médicis French: Le Loup mongol
• Prix Médicis International: The House of Sleep - Jonathan Coe

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Ian McEwan - Amsterdam
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Beryl Bainbridge, Master Georgie
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More
• Cholmondeley Award: Roger McGough, Robert Minhinnick, Anne Ridler, Ken Smith
• Eric Gregory Award: Mark Goodwin, Joanne Limburg, Patrick McGuinness, Kona Macphee, Esther Morgan, Christiania Whitehead, Frances Williams
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Carol Shields, Larry's Party
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Les Murray
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Ted Hughes, Birthday Letters

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Shara McCallum, The Water Between Us
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: X.J. Kennedy
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Horton Foote
• American Book Award Before Columbus Foundation: Angela Davis, Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, and (separately) Allison Hedge Coke, Dog Road Woman
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Sherod Santos, "Elegy for My Sister", and (separately) Neil Azevedo, "Caspar Hauser Songs"
• Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Frank Bidart, Desire
• Compton Crook Award: Katie Waitman, The Merro Tree
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Joe Haldeman, Forever Peace
• Frost Medal: Stanley Kunitz
• Nebula Award: Joe Haldeman, Forever Peace
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Paula Vogel, How I Learned to Drive
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Philip Roth, American Pastoral
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Charles Wright, Black Zodiac
• Wallace Stevens Award: A. R. Ammons

Elsewhere

• IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Herta Muller, The Land of Green Plums
• Premio Nadal: Lucía Etxebarria, Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes

Fiction Rituparna Bhattacharjee 'Bhutia' an award winning collection of short stories by the youngest female writer (11 years old) of India ,1998. Her book was released by the then Chief Minister, West Bengal Jyoti Basu in presence of Sri Buddhadev Bhattacharjee. The book got plethora of commendations from the book reviewers in the country and abroad in Bengali and English newspapers