2010 in literature

The year 2010 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

Mario Vargas Llosa in 2010

• February – The Wheeler Centre, Australia's "literary hub", officially opened.^[1]
• April 3 – First release of the Apple iPad, electronic book reading device.^[2]
• April 12 – Little-known author Paul Harding wins Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, published by tiny Bellevue Literary Press.^[2]
• June 24 – Neil Gaiman becomes the first author to win both the Carnegie Medal and the Newbery Medal for the same book — The Graveyard Book.^[3]
• July 27 – Steig Larsson's Millennium Trilogy becomes an international sensation. As of May 2010, a total of 27 million copies have been sold worldwide.^[4][5] On July 27 Amazon says Larsson is first author to sell more than 1 million Kindle e-books.^[2]
• August 13 – TIME magazine puts Jonathan Franzen on its cover for his novel Freedom, the first time an author appeared there since 2000 with Stephen King.^[2]
• October 7 – The 2010 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to Mario Vargas Llosa for "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat".
• October 12 – Howard Jacobson wins the Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question
• November 9 – Johanna Skibsrud wins the Scotiabank Giller Prize for her novel The Sentimentalists.^[6]
• November 16 – The 2010 Governor General's Awards are announced. Winners include Dianne Warren for English fiction, Kim Thúy for French fiction, Richard Greene for poetry and Robert Chafe for drama.^[7]
• November – Mark Twain's Autobiography is published (officially) 100 years after the author's death, the delay instructed by Twain himself. Unofficial copies had been published multiple times throughout the 20th century.

Awards

• Petrarca-Preis – Pierre Michon, for his body of work

Books

Fiction

• Martin Amis – The Pregnant Widow (February 4)
• Paul Auster – Sunset Park (November 9)
• T. C. Boyle – Wild Child: and other stories (January 21)
• Peter Carey – Parrot and Olivier in America (April 20)
• Eddie Chuculate – Cheyenne Madonna (June 20)
• Robert Coover – Noir (March 4)
• Michael Cunningham – By Nightfall (September 28)
• Don DeLillo – Point Omega (February 2)
• Jennifer Egan – A Visit from the Goon Squad (June 15)
• Bret Easton Ellis – Imperial Bedrooms (June 15)
• Joshua Ferris – The Unnamed (January 18)
• Jonathan Franzen – Freedom (August 31)
• Sara Gruen – Ape House (September 7)
• Adam Haslett – Union Atlantic (February 9)
• Howard Jacobson – The Finkler Question (October 12)
• Jesse Lee Kercheval – Brazil (March 31)
• Stephen King – Blockade Billy (April 20) Full Dark, No Stars (November 9)
• Nicole Krauss – Great House (October 12)
• Stieg Larsson – The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest (May 10)
• John Le Carre – Our Kind of Traitor (October 12)
• Dennis Lehane – Moonlight Mile (November 2)
• Elmore Leonard – Djibouti (October 12)
• Tao Lin – Richard Yates (September 7)
• Sam Lipsyte – The Ask (March 2)
• Ian McEwan – Solar (March 30)
• Yann Martel – Beatrice and Virgil (April 6)
• Paolo Bacigalupi – Ship Breaker (May 1)
• Steve Martin – An Object of Beauty (November 23)
• Dinaw Mengestu – How to Read the Air (October 14)
• David Mitchell – The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (June 29)
• Rick Moody – The Four Fingers of Death (July 28)
• Ben Myers – Richard: A Novel (October 1)
• Antonya Nelson – Bound (September 28)
• Joyce Carol Oates
  • A Fair Maiden (January 6)
  • Sourland (September 14)
• Julie Orringer – The Invisible Bridge (May 18)
• Cynthia Ozick – Foreign Bodies (November 1)
• Chuck Palahniuk – Tell All (May 4)
• Philip Pullman – The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ (May 20)
• Philip Roth – Nemesis (October 5)
• David Sedaris – Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (September 28)
• Gary Shteyngart – Super Sad True Love Story (July 27)

Science fiction and fantasy

• Jim Butcher – Changes (April 6)
• Darren Hann, Melanie Collins, Steve Lake – Sci-Fi from the Rock (April 17)
• Adam Roberts – New Model Army (April 15)
• Dan Simmons – Black Hills (February 24)^[8]

Children's and Young Adult fiction

• Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay (August 24)
• Diane Duane – A Wizard of Mars (April 12)
• John Flanagan – The Emperor of Nihon-Ja (November 2010)
• Matthew J. Kirby – The Clockwork Three (October 1)
• Robert Muchamore – Brigands M. C. (May 6)
• Garth Nix – Lord Sunday (February)
• James Patterson – Fang: A Maximum Ride Novel (March 15)
• Philip Reeve – A Web of Air (April 5)
• Rick Riordan – The Lost Hero (October 12)
• Clare Vanderpool – Moon Over Manifest (October 12)
• Kiersten White – Paranormalcy (August 31)
• N.D. Wilson – The Chestnut King

Poetry

See 2010 in poetry.

Non-fiction

• George W. Bush – Decision Points (November 9)
• Sloane Crosley – How Did You Get This Number (June 15)
• Nora Ephron – I Remember Nothing: and Other Reflections (November 9)
• Sam Harris – The Moral Landscape: How Science Can Determine Human Values (October 5)
• Laura Hillenbrand – Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption (November 16)
• Joel Kotkin – The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050
• David Lipsky – Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself (April 13)
• David Rakoff – Half Empty (September 21)
• Jane Smiley – The Man Who Invented The Computer (December)
• Stephen Sondheim – Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) (October 26)
• Jon Stewart – Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race (September 21)
• Darin Strauss – Half a Life (September 21)

Deaths

• 1 January
  • Bingo Gazingo, 85, American performance poet
  • Billy Arjan Singh, 92, Indian author
• 2 January – Rajendra Keshavlal Shah, 96, Indian poet
• 3 January – Isak Rogde, 62, Norwegian translator
• 4 January
  • Knox Burger, 87, American editor, writer, and literary agent
  • Hywel Teifi Edwards, 74, Welsh historian and writer
• 5 January – Bernard Le Nail, 63, French writer, historian
• 6 January – George Leonard, 86, American writer, editor
• 8 January – Slavka Maneva, 75, Macedonian writer and poet
• 9 January – Laura Chapman Hruska, 74, American writer, co-founder and editor in chief of Soho Press
• 14 January – P. K. Page, 93, Canadian poet
• 16 January – Takumi Shibano, 83, Japanese novelist
• 17 January – Erich Segal, 72, American professor, author
• 18 January – Robert B. Parker, 77, American detective writer (Spenser series, Jesse Stone novels)
• 19 January – Vladimir Karpov, 87, Russian writer, Chairman of the USSR Union of Writers (1986–1991)
  

  

  Robert B. Parker
• 20 January – Abraham Sutzkever, 96, Polish-born Israeli poet.
• 21 January – Paul Quarrington, 56, Canadian novelist
• 26 January – Louis Auchincloss, 92, American novelist
• 27 January
  • J. D. Salinger, 91, American novelist (The Catcher in the Rye)
  • Howard Zinn, 87, American historian (A People's History of the United States)
• 31 January
  • Kage Baker, 57, American science fiction and fantasy author
  • Tomás Eloy Martínez, 75, Argentine writer
• 2 February
  • Rosa Lobato de Faria, 77, Portuguese writer
  • Eustace Mullins, 86, American political writer, author and biographer
• 5 February
  • Peter Calvocoressi, 97, British historian, publisher
  • Brooks Thomas, 78, American publisher (Harper and Row)
• 6 February – Robert Dana, 80, American poet
• 7 February – William Tenn, 89, American science fiction writer
  

  

  Robert Dana
• 8 February – Wahei Tatematsu, 62, Japanese novelist,
• 10 February – H. V. F. Winstone, 83, British writer
• 11 February – Colin Ward, 85, British anarchist writer
• 13 February – Lucille Clifton, 73, American poet
• 14 February – Dick Francis, 89, British novelist
• 16 February – Jim Harmon, 76, American science fiction writer
• 17 February – Arnold Beichman, 96, American writer
• 23 February – Mervyn Jones, 87, British biographer and novelist
• 27 February – Carlos Montemayor, 62, Mexican writer
• 1 March – Barry Hannah, 67, American novelist and short story writer
• 3 March – Momo Kapor, 72, Serbian writer
• 8 March – Jerry E. Smith, 59, American author
• 9 March – Alda Neves da Graça do Espírito Santo, 83, Santomean poet
• 10 March – Truddi Chase, 70, American autobiographical author
• 11 March – Matilde Elena López, 91, Salvadoran poet, essayist and playwright
• 12 March – Miguel Delibes, 89, Spanish novelist
• 14 March – Vinda Karandikar, 91, Indian poet and writer
• 15 March
  • Joseph Galdon, 81, Filipino writer
  • Patricia Wrightson, 88, Australian children's writer
• 16 March – Jane Sherman, 101, American writer
• 17 March – Sid Fleischman, 90, American children's writer
• 18 March – Amanda Castro, 47, Honduran poet
• 20 March – Ai Ogawa, 62, American poet
• 21 March – Susana, Lady Walton, 83, Argentine writer
• 24 March – William Mayne, 82, British children's author
• 28 March – Zofia Romanowiczowa, 87, Polish writer and translator
• 2 April – Carolyn Rodgers, 69, American poet
• 9 April
  • Hisashi Inoue, 75, Japanese pacifist playwright
  • Kerstin Thorvall, 84, Swedish author, illustrator and journalist
• 14 April – Erika Burkart, 88, Swiss German-language author
• 16 April – Carlos Franqui, 89, Cuban writer and activist
• 20 April – Myles Wilder, 77, American television comedy writer
• 25 April – Alan Sillitoe, 82, British novelist
• 28 April
  • Evelyn Cunningham, 94, American journalist
  • Stefania Grodzieńska, 95, Polish writer and actress
• 1 May – T. M. Aluko, 91, Nigerian writer [1]
• 3 May
  • Mohammed Abed al-Jabri, 73, Moroccan philosopher and writer
  • Peter O'Donnell, 90, British novelist
• 6 May – Hoàng Cầm, 88, Vietnamese poet and playwright
• 7 May
  • Rane Arroyo, 55, American poet, cerebral hemorrhage [2]
  • Anders Buraas, 94, Norwegian journalist
• 12 May
  • Allan Manings, 86, American television writer
  • Antonis Karkayiannis, 78, Greek journalist and newspaper publisher
• 18 May – Edoardo Sanguineti, 79, Italian poet
• 6 August – Tony Judt, 62, British historian
• 9 August – Juan Marichal, 88, Spanish historian
• 10 August – Marie de Garis, 100, Guernseyan author
• 12 August – Laurence Gardner, 67, British writer
• 13 August – Patrick Cauvin, 77, French novelist
• 14 August – Terje Stigen, 88, Norwegian author
• 16 August – Narayan Gangaram Surve, 83, Indian poet
• 17 August
  • Ludvík Kundera, 90, Czech writer and translator
  • Edwin Morgan, 90, Scottish poet
• 18 August – Efraim Sevela, 82, Russian writer and screenwriter
• 20 August – David J. Weber, 69, American historian and author
• 21 August – Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill, 69, Argentine writer
• 27 August
  • George Hitchcock, 96, American poet
  • Ravindra Kelekar, 85, Indian author and poet
• 29 August – A. C. Baantjer, 86, Dutch author
• 31 August – Vance Bourjaily, 87, American novelist, playwright, journalist, and essayist
• 3 September
  • Larry Ashmead, 78, American book editor
  • Micky Burn, 97, British writer and poet
• 5 September
  • Elizabeth Jenkins, 104, English author
  • Lewis Nkosi, 73, South African writer
• 7 September – Barbara Holland, 77, American author
• 10 September – Edwin Charles Tubb, 90, British science fiction author
• 11 September – Fathi Osman, 82, Egyptian author
• 12 September – Judith Merkle Riley, 68, American author
• 18 September – James Bacon, 96, American author
• 20 September – Jennifer Rardin, 45, American author
• 24 September – Gilda O'Neill, 59, British novelist and historian
• 29 September – Clifford B. Hicks, 90, American writer and editor
• 1 October – Mikhail Roshchin, 77, Russian playwright
• 4 October – Henrique de Senna Fernandes, 86, Macanese author
• 5 October
  • Alba Bouwer, 90, South African writer
  • Bernard Clavel, 87, French writer
• 11 October – Claire Rayner, 79, British author
• 12 October – Belva Plain, 95, American novelist
• 13 October – Donald H. Tuck, 87, Australian science fiction bibliographer
• 20 October
  • Eva Ibbotson, 85, Austrian-born British novelist
  • Robert Katz, 77, American writer
  • Julian Roberts, 80, British librarian
• 21 October – A. Ayyappan, 61, Indian poet
• 22 October – Alí Chumacero, 92, Mexican writer and poet
• 23 October – George Cain, 66, American author
• 24 October – Joseph Stein, 98, American playwright
• 25 October – Vesna Parun, 88, Croatian poet
• 29 October – Bärbel Mohr, 46, German author
• 30 October – Harry Mulisch, 83, Dutch writer
• 1 November – Monica Johnson, 64, American novelist
• 3 November – P. Lal, 81, Indian writer
• 4 November – Ophelia Alcantara Dimalanta, 76, Filipino poet
• 5 November – Adrian Păunescu, 67, Romanian author, poet
• 8 November
  • Philip Carlo, 61, American crime author
  • George Solomos, 85, American editor and writer
• 9 November – Ektor Kaknavatos, 90, Greek poet
• 11 November – Carlos Edmundo de Ory, 87, Spanish poet
• 15 November
  • Edmond Amran El Maleh, 93, Moroccan writer
  • Hugh Prather, 72, American self-help author
• 16 November – Ragnhild Magerøy, 90, Norwegian writer
• 21 November – Norris Church Mailer, 61, American author
• 25 November – Yaroslav Pavulyak, 62, Ukrainian poet
• 29 November – Bella Akhmadulina, 73, Russian poet
• 5 December
  • David French, 71, Canadian playwright
  • Heda Margolius Kovály, 91, Czech author
• 6 December – Martin Russ, 79, American author
• 7 December – Elizabeth Edwards, 61, American author
• 11 December – Julia Budenz, 76, American author and poet
• 15 December – Peter O. Chotjewitz, 76, German author
• 20 December – Brian Hanrahan, 61, British journalist
• 21 December – Aaron S. Zelman, 64, American author
• 24 December – Elisabeth Beresford, 84, British children's author, creator of The Wombles.

References

See also

• List of literary awards
• List of poetry awards