1995 in literature

Events

• January 12 – The première of Sarah Kane's complete Blasted at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in London provokes outrage.
• February 28 – The Diary of Bridget Jones column first appears in The Independent newspaper (London).
• March 1 – The Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea is opened by Jimmy Carter.
• April 23 – World Book Day is first celebrated.
• July 16 – Amazon.com, incorporated a year earlier by Jeff Bezos in Washington (state) as an online bookstore, sells its first book: Douglas Hofstadter's Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought.
• August – Blackwell UK becomes the first British bookseller to offer online purchasing.
• December 13 – The released film of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility has an Academy Award-winning screenplay by Emma Thompson.

Uncertain dates

• Simon & Schuster pays US$4.2 million for hardcover publishing rights to The Christmas Box, self-published by Richard Paul Evans, which has appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list.
• Fjærland in Norway becomes a book town.

New books

Fiction

• Ben Aaronovitch – The Also People
• Louisa May Alcott (posthumous) – A Long Fatal Love Chase
• Roger MacBride Allen
  • Ambush at Corellia
  • Assault at Selonia
  • Showdown at Centerpoint
• Julia Alvarez – In the Time of the Butterflies
• Martin Amis – The Information
• Kevin J. Anderson – Darksaber
• Iain Banks – Whit
• Pat Barker – The Ghost Road
• Daniel Blythe – Infinite Requiem
• Thomas Brussig – Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us)
• Christopher Bulis – The Sorcerer's Apprentice
• Edgar Rice Burroughs and Joe R. Lansdale – Tarzan: the Lost Adventure
• T. C. Boyle – The Tortilla Curtain
• Albert Camus (posthumous) – The First Man (Le Premier Homme, unfinished)
• Andrew Cartmel – Warlock
• Mary Higgins Clark – Silent Night
• Michael Connelly – The Last Coyote
• Paul Cornell – Human Nature
• Bernard Cornwell
  • Sharpe's Battle
  • Battle Flag
  • The Winter King
• Douglas Coupland – Microserfs
• Robert Crais – Voodoo River
• Michael Crichton – The Lost World
• Maurice G. Dantec – Les Racines du mal
• Martin Day – The Menagerie
• L. Sprague de Camp and Christopher Stasheff – The Exotic Enchanter
• Samuel Delany – Hogg
• Terrance Dicks – Shakedown: Return of the Sontarans
• Umberto Eco – The Island of the Day Before
• Stanley Elkin – Mrs. Ted Bliss
• Kirill Eskov – The Gospel of Afranius («Евангелие от Афрания»)
• Nicholas Evans – The Horse Whisperer
• Timothy Findley – The Piano Man's Daughter
• Richard Ford – Independence Day
• Jon Fosse – Melancholy (Melancholia I)
• Carlos Fuentes – The Crystal Frontier (La frontera de cristal)
• John Gardner – GoldenEye
• John Grisham – The Rainmaker
• Barbara Hambly – Children of the Jedi
• Craig Hinton – Millennial Rites
• Nick Hornby – High Fidelity
• Kazuo Ishiguro – The Unconsoled
• Elfriede Jelinek – The Children of the Dead
• Jo Jung-rae – Arirang
• Welwyn Wilton Katz – Out of the Dark
• Stephen King – Rose Madder
• Joe R. Lansdale – The Two-Bear Mambo
• John le Carré – Our Game
• Andy Lane
  • The Empire of Glass
  • Original Sin
• Paul Leonard
  • Dancing the Code
  • Toy Soldiers
• Jonathan Lethem – Amnesia Moon
• Barry Letts – The Ghosts of N-Space
• Robert Ludlum – The Apocalypse Watch
• Steve Lyons
  • Head Games
  • Time of Your Life
• Frank McCourt – Angela's Ashes (semi-autobiographical)
• Val McDermid – The Mermaids Singing
• David A. McIntee
  • Lords of the Storm
  • Sanctuary
• Andreï Makine – Dreams of My Russian Summers (Le Testament français)
• Henning Mankell – Chronicler of the Winds (Comédia infantil)
• Stephen Marley – Managra
• Zakes Mda – Ways of Dying
• James A. Michener – Miracle in Seville
• Rohinton Mistry – A Fine Balance
• Mary McGarry Morris – Songs in Ordinary Time
• Kate Orman – Set Piece
• Terry Pratchett – Maskerade
• Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
  • Relic
  • Mount Dragon
• Christoph Ransmayr – The Dog King (Morbus Kitahara)
• Jean Raspail – L'Anneau du pêcheur
• Justin Richards – System Shock
• Andrew Roberts – The Aachen Memorandum
• Gareth Roberts
  • The Romance of Crime
  • Zamper
• J. Jill Robinson – Eggplant Wife
• Philip Roth – Sabbath's Theater
• Salman Rushdie – The Moor's Last Sigh
• Gary Russell – Invasion of the Cat-People
• Josè Saramago – Blindness (Ensaio sobre a cegueira)
• Bernhard Schlink – The Reader
• W. G. Sebald – Die Ringe des Saturn: Eine englische Wallfahrt (The Rings of Saturn: An English Pilgrimage)
• Sidney Sheldon – Morning, Noon and Night
• Jane Smiley - Moo
• Danielle Steel – Five Days In Paris
• Neal Stephenson – The Diamond Age, or A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
• James B. Stewart – Blood Sport
• Dave Stone – Sky Pirates!
• Olga Tokarczuk – E.E.
• Jim Turner, editor – Cthulhu 2000: A Lovecraftian Anthology
• Andrew Vachss – Footsteps of the Hawk
• Robert James Waller – Puerto Vallarta Squeeze
• Dave Wolverton – The Courtship of Princess Leia

Children and young people

• Chris Van Allsburg – Bad Day at Riverbend
• Elizabeth Arnold – The Parsley Parcel
• Marion Zimmer Bradley (with Rosemary Edghill) – Ghostlight
• Jimmy Carter (illustrated by Amy Carter) – The Little Baby Snoogle-Fleejer
• Donald Hall (with Barry Moser) – The Pageant
• Virginia Hamilton (with Leo and Diane Dillon) – Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales
• Joe R. Lansdale – Tarzan: the Lost Adventure
• Fran Manushkin (with Ned Bittinger) – The Matzah That Papa Brought Home
• Jim Murphy – The Great Fire
• Alison Prince – The Sherwood Hero
• Philip Pullman – Northern Lights (in US as The Golden Compass)
• Diana Pullein-Thompson – I Wanted a Pony
• Josephine Pullein-Thompson – Six Ponies
• Mario Vargas Llosa (with Willi Glasauer) – Hitos y Mitos Literarios (The Milestones and the Stories of Greatest Literary Works)
• Judith Viorst – Alexander, Who Is Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It!) Going to Move
• Jacqueline Wilson – Double Act

Drama

• Parv Bancil – Papa Was A Bus Conductor
• Jez Butterworth – Mojo
• Margaret Edson – Wit
• Horton Foote – The Young Man From Atlanta
• Jon Fosse – The Name (Namnet)
• Ronald Harwood – Taking Sides
• Sarah Kane – Blasted
• Terrence McNally – Master Class
• Lynn Nottage
  • Crumbs from the Table of Joy
  • Por'Knockers
• Yasmina Reza – The Unexpected Man (L'homme du hasard)
• Tom Stoppard – Indian Ink

Poetry

Main article: 1995 in poetry

• Mark Doty – Atlantis: Poems

Non-fiction

• André Aciman – Out of Egypt
• Jean Baudrillard – The Gulf War Did Not Take Place
• John G. Bennett (posthumously) – The Masters of Wisdom
• George G. Blackburn – The Guns of Normandy
• Wayne C. Booth, Gregory G. Colomb, and Joseph M. Williams – The Craft of Research
• Pascal Bruckner – The Temptation of Innocence
• L. Sprague de Camp – The Ape-Man Within
• Tim Cornell – The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars
• Paul Davies – About Time
• Robin Dunbar – The Trouble with Science
• Mark Epstein – Thoughts Without a Thinker: Psychotherapy from a Buddhist Perspective
• Bill Gates – The Road Ahead
• Doris Kearns Goodwin – No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
• Richard Hoffman – Half the House: A Memoir
• Nelson Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom
• Leonard Nimoy – I Am Spock
• Leslie and Les Parrott – Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts
• Man Ray and André Breton – Man Ray, 1890–1976
• Condoleezza Rice and Philip Zelikow – Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft
• Oliver Sacks – An Anthropologist on Mars
• Simon Schama – Landscape and Memory
• Sterling Seagrave – Lords of the Rim
• Miranda Seymour – Robert Graves: Life on the Edge
• Howard Stern – Miss America
• Ibn Warraq – Why I Am Not a Muslim
• Jane Wesman – Dive Right In: The Sharks Won't Bite
• Jane Wilson-Howarth – Bugs, Bites & Bowels (later editions as The Essential Guide to Travel Health)

Films

• Sense and Sensibility

Births

• June 7 - Beth Reekles, Welsh author of young adult fiction
• June 13 - S. C. Megale, American novelist and screenwriter

Deaths

• January 9 – Peter Cook, English writer, comedian and satirist (born 1937)
• January 30 – Gerald Durrell, English nature writer and naturalist (born 1925)
• January 31 – George Abbott, American writer, director and producer (born 1887)
• February 4 – Patricia Highsmith, American crime novelist (born 1921)
• February 6
  • James Merrill, American poet (born 1926)
  • Xia Yan (夏衍), Chinese playwright and screenwriter, (born 1900)
• February 14 – Mary Paik Lee, Korean-American writer (born 1900)
• February 20 – Robert Bolt, English dramatist (born 1924)
• February 21 – Calder Willingham, American writer (born 1922)
• February 23 – James Herriot, English veterinary novelist (born 1916)
• March 9 – Ian Ballantine, American publisher (born 1916)
• March 20 – Sidney Kingsley, American dramatist (born 1906)
• April 14 – Brian Coffey, Irish poet (born 1905)
• April 27 – Willem Frederik Hermans, Dutch writer (born 1921)
• May 30 or May 31 – Ștefana Velisar Teodoreanu, Romanian novelist, memoirist and poet (born 1897)
• June 14 – Roger Zelazny, American fantasy and science fiction writer (born 1937)
• June 15 – Charles Bennett, English screenwriter (born 1899)
• June 20 – Emil Cioran, Romanian philosopher and essayist (born 1911)
• June 21– Katarína Lazarová, Slovak novelist and translator (born 1914)
• June 25 – Qiu Miaojin (邱妙津), Taiwanese Chinese novelist (suicide, born 1969)
• July 6 – Aziz Nesin, Turkish writer (born 1915)
• July 13 – Ashapoorna Devi, Indian author and poet (born 1908)
• July 16
  • May Sarton, Belgian-born American poet, novelist and memoirist (born 1912)
  • Stephen Spender, English poet (born 1909)
• July 25 – Janice Elliott, English novelist and children's writer (born 1931)
• August 3 – Edward Whittemore, American novelist, (born 1933)
• August 17 – Howard Koch, American screenwriter (born 1901)
• August 19 – Pierre Schaeffer, French composer and writer (born 1910)
• August 29 – Michael Ende, German fantasy novelist (born 1929)
• September 8 – Eileen Chang, Chinese writer (born 1920)
• October 13 – Henry Roth, Austrian-born American novelist and short story writer (born 1906)
• October 22 – Kingsley Amis, English novelist (born 1922)
• October 29 – Terry Southern, American screenwriter (born 1924)
• November 4 – Gilles Deleuze, French philosopher (born 1925)
• November 10 – Ken Saro-Wiwa, Nigerian writer (executed, born 1941)
• November 13 – Mary Elizabeth Counselman, American author and poet (born 1911)
• November 16 – Robert H. Adleman, American novelist and historian (born 1919)
• November 17 – Marguerite Young, American novelist, poet and biographer (born 1908)
• November 20 – Robie Macauley, American writer and literary critic (born 1919)
• November 22 – Margaret St. Clair, American science fiction writer (born 1911)
• December 2 – Robertson Davies, Canadian novelist (born 1913)
• December 9 – Toni Cade Bambara, American writer (born 1939)
• December 30 – Heiner Müller, German dramatist (born 1929)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Seamus Heaney
• Camões Prize: José Saramago

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Richard King, Kindling Does For Firewood
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Bruce Beaver, Anima and Other Poems
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Peter Boyle, Coming Home From the World
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Aileen Kelly, Coming Up for Light
• Miles Franklin Award: Helen Demidenko, The Hand That Signed the Paper

Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
• See 1995 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Denise Chong, The Concubine's Children

France

• Prix Goncourt: Andreï Makine, Le Testament français
• Prix Décembre: Jean Échenoz, Les Grandes Blondes
• Prix Médicis French: Vassilis Alexakis, La Langue maternelle and Andreï Makine, Le testament français
• Prix Médicis International: Alessandro Baricco, Châteaux de la colère

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Pat Barker, The Ghost Road
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Christopher Priest, The Prestige
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Gitta Sereny, Albert Speer: His Battle with the Truth
• Cholmondeley Award: U. A. Fanthorpe, Christopher Reid, C. H. Sisson, Kit Wright
• Eric Gregory Award: Colette Bryce, Sophie Hannah, Tobias Hill, Mark Wormald
• Newdigate prize: Antony Dunn
• Whitbread Book of the Year Award: Kate Atkinson, Behind the Scenes at the Museum

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Sandy Solomon, Pears, Lake, Sun
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Maxine Kumin
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Fiction, William Maxwell
• Carnegie Medal: Philip Pullman, Northern Lights
• Compton Crook Award: Doranna Durgin, Dun Lady's Jess
• Hugo Award: Lois McMaster Bujold, Mirror Dance
• Nebula Award: Robert Sawyer, The Terminal Experiment
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Sharon Creech, Walk Two Moons
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Horton Foote, The Young Man From Atlanta
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Philip Levine, The Simple Truth
• Pulitzer Prize for Biography or Autobiography: Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life
• Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction: Jonathan Weiner, The Beak of the Finch: A Story of Evolution in Our Time
• Pulitzer Prize for History: Doris Kearns Goodwin, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II
• Wallace Stevens Award: James Tate
• Whiting Awards: :Fiction: Michael Cunningham, Reginald McKnight, Matthew Stadler, Melanie Sumner :Nonfiction: André Aciman, Lucy Grealy (nonfiction/poetry), Suzannah Lessard, Russ Rymer :Poetry: James L. McMichael, Mary Ruefle

Elsewhere

• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Annemarie Schimmel
• New Zealand Book Award for Poetry: Michele Leggott, Dia
• Montana Book Award for Poetry: Michael Jackson, Pieces of Music
• Premio Nadal: Ignacio Carrión Hernández, Cruzar el Danubio
• Premio San Clemente: Xurxo Borrazás, Vicious

Notes

References

References

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12. Hahn 2015, p. 361
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43. Hahn 2015, p. 660