1999 in literature

The year 1999 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

• June 19 - Stephen King is hit by a Dodge van while taking a walk. He spends the next three weeks hospitalized. He does not continue with his next book, On Writing, until July.

New books

• Aaron Allston - Solo Command and Starfighters of Adumar
• Angie Sage Board Books - 8 Books Set (1999–2002)
• Laurie Halse Anderson - Speak
• Max Barry - Syrup
• Greg Bear - Darwin's Radio
• Raymond Benson - High Time to Kill and The World Is Not Enough
• Thomas Berger - The Return of Little Big Man
• Maeve Binchy - Tara Road
• Ben Bova - Return to Mars
• Dionne Brand - At the Full and Change of the Moon
• Terry Brooks - Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
• Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
• Tracy Chevalier - Girl with a Pearl Earring
• J. M. Coetzee - Disgrace
• Matt Cohen - Elizabeth and After
• Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Fortress and Stonehenge: A Novel of 2000 BC
• Douglas Coupland - Miss Wyoming
• Robert Crais - L.A. Requiem
• Michael Crichton - Timeline
• August Derleth, editor - New Horizons
• Marc Dugain - La Chambre des Officiers (The Officers' Ward)
• Frederic S. Durbin - Dragonfly
• Bret Easton Ellis - Glamorama
• Sebastian Faulks - Charlotte Gray
• Amanda Filipacchi - Vapor
• Diana Gabaldon - Through the Stones
• John Grisham - The Testament
• Ha Jin - Waiting
• Joanne Harris - Chocolat
• Thomas Harris - Hannibal
• Victor Heck - The Asylum Vol 1 - The Psycho Ward
• Ernest Hemingway - True at First Light
• Carl Hiaasen - Sick Puppy
• Stewart Home - Cunt
• Michel Houellebecq - Atomised
• Nancy Huston - The Mark of the Angel
• Jerry B. Jenkins & Tim LaHaye - Soul Harvest
• K. W. Jeter - Hard Merchandise
• Stephen King - The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon and Hearts in Atlantis
• John le Carré - Single & Single
• Jonathan Lethem - Motherless Brooklyn
• Frank McCourt -'Tis
• David Macfarlane - Summer Gone
• Alistair MacLeod - No Great Mischief
• Juliet Marillier - Daughter of the Forest
• Jeffrey Moore - Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain
• Toni Morrison - Paradise
• Chuck Palahniuk - Invisible Monsters and Survivor
• Terry Pratchett - The Fifth Elephant
• Kathy Reichs - Death du Jour
• Matthew Reilly - Temple
• J. K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Louis Sachar - Holes
• R. A. Salvatore - Vector Prime
• F. Tupper Saussy - Rulers Of Evil
• Neal Shusterman - Downsiders
• Michael Slade - Burnt Bones
• Lemony Snicket - The Reptile Room
• Susan Sontag - In America
• Michael Stackpole - Isard's Revenge
• Matthew Stadler - Allan Stein
• Danielle Steel - Irresistible Forces
• Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
• James B. Stewart - Blind Eye
• Koushun Takami - Battle Royale
• Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil
• Vernor Vinge - A Deepness in the Sky
• Jeanette Winterson - The World and Other Places
• Robert Clark Young - One of the Guys
• Timothy Zahn - The Icarus Hunt
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold - Lord Demon

New drama

• David Mamet - Boston Marriage
• Frank McGuinness - Dolly West's Kitchen

Poetry

• Dejan Stojanović, Sunce sebe gleda (The Sun Watches Itself),^[1] Književna reč, Beograd, 1999

Non-fiction

• The Dalai Lama - Ancient Wisdom, Modern World
• Wayson Choy - Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood
• Freeman Dyson - The Sun, the Genome and the Internet
• Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke - Paracelsus: Essential Readings.
• Brian Greene - The Elegant Universe
• Deborah Harkness - John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature
• Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster - The Century
• S.T. Joshi - Sixty Years of Arkham House
• Winona LaDuke - All our Relations: Native Struggles for Land and Life
• David Southwell - Conspiracy Theories (book)
• Dejan Stojanović, Razgovori (Conversations),^[2] Književna reč, Beograd, 1999

Births

Deaths

• February 8 - Iris Murdoch, writer, aged 79
• February 20 - Sarah Kane, playwright, aged 28
• February 22 - William Bronk, poet, winner of the 1982 National Book Award aged 81
• February 24 - Andre Dubus, writer
• March 4 - Karel van het Reve, Dutch writer, aged 77
• March 13 Garson Kanin, American playwright and screenwriter
• March 28 - Jim Turner, editor, aged 54
• May 10 - Shel Silverstein, children's poet, aged 68
• June 14 - J. F. Powers, American writer, aged 81
• July 2 - Mario Puzo, writer (The Godfather), aged 78
• July 16 - John F. Kennedy, Jr., publisher, son of John F. Kennedy, aged 38 (airplane crash)
• October 3 - Heinz G. Konsalik, writer, aged 78
• October 19 - Nathalie Sarraute, Russian born Francophone lawyer and writer
• November 11 - Jacobo Timmerman, journalist and publisher
• November 18 - Paul Bowles, novelist
• December 8 - Rupert Hart-Davis, editor, publisher
• December 12 - Joseph Heller, American novelist (Catch-22), aged 76

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Günter Grass

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Hsu-Ming Teo, Love and Vertigo
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Gig Ryan, Pure and Applied
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Lee Cataldi, Race Against Time
• Miles Franklin Award: Murray Bail, Eucalyptus

Canada

• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Bonnie Burnard: A Good House
• See 1999 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

France

• Prix Femina: Maryline Desbiolles, Anchise
• Prix Goncourt: Jean Echenoz, Je m'en vais
• Prix Décembre: Claude Askolovitch, Voyage au bout de la France: Le Front National tel qu'il est
• Prix Médicis French: Michel Del Castillo, Colette, une certaine France
• Prix Médicis Non-Fiction: Christian Oster, Mon grand appartement
• Prix Médicis International: Bjorn Larsson, Le capitaine et les rêves

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Aidan Chambers, Postcards from No Man's Land
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Timothy Mo, Renegade, or Halo2
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Kathryn Hughes, George Eliot: The Last Victorian
• Cholmondeley Award: Vicki Feaver, Geoffrey Hill, Elma Mitchell, Sheenagh Pugh
• Eric Gregory Award: Ross Cogan, Matthew Hollis, Helen Ivory, Andrew Pidoux, Owen Sheers, Dan Wyke
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Suzanne Berne, A Crime in the Neighborhood
• Samuel Johnson Prize: Antony Beevor, Stalingrad
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, Beowulf

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Daisy Fried, She Didn't Mean To Do It
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: George Garrett
• Arthur Rense Prize awarded to James McMichael by the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: J.D. McClatchy, "Tattoos"
• Compton Crook Award: James Stoddard, The High House
• Frost Medal: Barbara Guest
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Connie Willis, To Say Nothing of the Dog
• Nebula Award: Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Louis Sachar, Holes
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Margaret Edson, Wit
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Michael Cunningham, The Hours
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Mark Strand, Blizzard of One
• Wallace Stevens Award: Jackson Mac Low

Elsewhere

• Finlandia Prize: 1999 Kristina Carlson, Maan ääreen
• Premio Nadal: Gustavo Martín Zarzo, Las historias de Marta y Fernando
• Viareggio Prize: Ernesto Franco, Vite senza fine
• IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain

Notes