1999 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1999. See also: 1998 in literature, other events of 1999, 2000 in literature, list of years in literature.

Events

• May 1 – Andrew Motion is appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom for ten years.
• June 19 – Stephen King is hit by a van while taking a walk. He is hospitalized for three weeks and only resumes writing his next book, On Writing, in July.
• September 7 – Black Diamond, designed by Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects, is inaugurated as an extension to the Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen.
• unknown date – Persephone Books is founded in Bloomsbury, London, by Nicola Beauman, to reprint mid-20th century fiction and non-fiction, mainly by women.

New books

Fiction

• Isabel Allende – Daughter of Fortune (Hija de la fortuna)
• Aaron Allston
  • Solo Command
  • Starfighters of Adumar
• Laurie Halse Anderson – Speak
• Max Barry – Syrup
• Greg Bear – Darwin's Radio
• Raymond Benson
  • High Time to Kill
  • The World Is Not Enough
• Maeve Binchy – Tara Road
• Luther Blissett (pseudonym) – Q
• François Bloemhof – Klipgooi
• Ben Bova – Return to Mars
• Terry Brooks – Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace
• Thomas Brussig – Am kürzeren Ende der Sonnenallee
• Bonnie Burnard – A Good House
• 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
  • 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
• Per Olov Enquist – The Visit of the Royal Physician (Livläkarens besök)
• Steve Erickson – The Sea Came in at Midnight
• Sebastian Faulks – Charlotte Gray
• Helen Fielding – * The Edge of Reason*
• Amanda Filipacchi – Vapor
• Anna Gavalda – Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part
• John Grisham – The Testament
• Ha Jin (哈金) – Waiting
• Joanne Harris – Chocolat
• Thomas Harris – Hannibal
• Ernest Hemingway – True at First Light
• Carl Hiaasen – Sick Puppy
• Stewart Home – Cunt
• Michel Houellebecq – Atomised
• Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye – Soul Harvest
• K. W. Jeter – Hard Merchandise
• Lisa Jewell – Ralph's Party
• Stephen King:
  • The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon
  • Hearts in Atlantis
• László Krasznahorkai – War and War
• Jhumpa Lahiri – Interpreter of Maladies (short stories)
• Joe R. Lansdale
  • Veil's Visit: a Taste of Hap and Leonard
  • Freezer Burn
• John le Carré – Single & Single
• Jonathan Lethem – Motherless Brooklyn
• Ray Loriga – Tokio ya no nos quiere
• Frank McCourt -'Tis
• David Macfarlane – Summer Gone
• Alistair MacLeod – No Great Mischief
• Juliet Marillier – Daughter of the Forest
• Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell – From Hell (graphic novel)
• Jeffrey Moore – Prisoner in a Red-Rose Chain
• Erwin Mortier – Marcel
• Chuck Palahniuk
  • Invisible Monsters
  • Survivor
• Tony Parsons – Man and Boy
• Terry Pratchett – The Fifth Elephant
• Kathy Reichs – Death du Jour
• Matthew Reilly – Temple
• Jennifer Roberson – Lady of Sherwood
• Louis Sachar – Holes
• R. A. Salvatore – Vector Prime
• Margit Sandemo – Skattejakten
• Neal Shusterman – Downsiders
• Susan Sontag – In America
• Ahdaf Soueif – The Map of Love
• Michael Stackpole – Isard's Revenge
• Matthew Stadler – Allan Stein
• Danielle Steel – Irresistible Forces
• Neal Stephenson – Cryptonomicon
• Francine Stock – A Foreign Country
• Peter Straub – Mr. X
• Remy Sylado – Ca Bau Kan (The Courtesan)
• Koushun Takami (高見 広春) – Battle Royale
• Rose Tremain – Music and Silence
• Miloš Urban – Sedmikostelí (The Seven Churches)
• Andrew Vachss – Choice of Evil
• Jane Vandenburgh – The Physics of Sunset
• Vernor Vinge – A Deepness in the Sky
• Jeanette Winterson – The World and Other Places
• Timothy Zahn – The Icarus Hunt
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold – Lord Demon

Children and young people

• David Almond – Kit's Wilderness
• Elizabeth Arnold – Spin of the Sunwheel
• Susan Cooper – King of Shadows
• Julia Donaldson (with Axel Scheffler) – The Gruffalo
• Nick Earls – 48 Shades of Brown
• Mem Fox - Sleepy Bears
• Barbara Diamond Goldin – Journeys With Elijah: Eight Tales of the Prophet
• Gerald Hausman (with Loretta Hausman and Barry Moser) – Dogs of Myth: Tales from Around the World
• Satoshi Kitamura – Me and My Cat?
• Adeline Yen Mah – Chinese Cinderella (autobiography)
• Robert L. Millet (with James C. Christensen) – Parables and other Teaching Stories
• John Nickle – The Ant Bully
• Andre Norton (with Martin H. Greenberg) – Catfantastic V
• Iona Opie – Here Comes Mother Goose
• Jerry Pinkney
  • The Little Match Girl
  • The Ugly Duckling
• Louise Rennison – Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging
• Faith Ringgold – If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
• Lemony Snicket
  • The Bad Beginning
  • The Reptile Room
• Jacqueline Wilson – The Illustrated Mum
• Simms Taback – Joseph Had a Little Overcoat

Drama

• Jon Fosse – Dream of Autumn (Draum om hausten)
• David Mamet – Boston Marriage
• Frank McGuinness – Dolly West's Kitchen
• Lars Norén – 7:3
• Mark O'Rowe – Howie the Rookie
• Éric-Emmanuel Schmitt – Hôtel des deux mondes
• Zlatko Topčić – Refugees
• August Wilson – King Hedley II

Poetry

Main article: 1999 in poetry

• Iona Opie – Here Comes Mother Goose
• Dejan Stojanović – Sunce sebe gleda (The Sun Watches Itself)

Non-fiction

• Thomas Berry – The Great Work: Our Way into the Future
• David Cairns – Berlioz: Volume 2, Servitude and Greatness 1832–1869
• Wayson Choy – Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood
• The Dalai Lama – Ancient Wisdom, Modern World
• Samuel R. Delany – Times Square Red, Times Square Blue
• Laurence des Cars – Les Préraphaélites : Un modernisme à l'anglaise
• Freeman Dyson – The Sun, the Genome and the Internet
• Koenraad Elst – Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate
• John Steele Gordon – The Great Game: The Emergence of Wall Street as a World Power: 1653–2000
• 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
• Bruce Lincoln – Theorizing Myth: Narrative, Ideology, and Scholarship
• Jamie Oliver – The Naked Chef
• W. G. Sebald – Luftkrieg und Literatur (Air War and Literature, translated as On the Natural History of Destruction)
• David Southwell – Conspiracy Theories
• Dejan Stojanović – Razgovori (Conversations)
• Jean-Pierre Vernant – L'univers, les dieux, les hommes

Births

• October 13 – Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, Nigerian–British author and columnist
• December 22 – Ameer Idreis, Canadian writer

Deaths

• January 11 – Naomi Mitchison, Scottish novelist and poet (born 1897)
• January 16 – Dadie Rylands (George Rylands), English Shakespearean scholar (born 1902)
• February 8 – Iris Murdoch, Irish-born novelist and philosopher (born 1919)
• February 20 – Sarah Kane, English playwright (suicide, born 1971)
• February 22 – William Bronk, American poet (born 1918)
• February 24 – Andre Dubus, American short story writer, essayist and autobiographer (born 1936){{cite interview |access-date=2009-03-21 |url=http://www.beatrice.com/interviews/dubus/
• March 4
  • Del Close, American actor, writer, and teacher (born 1934)
  • Karel van het Reve, Dutch writer (born 1921)
• March 5 – John Figueroa, Jamaican poet (born 1920)
• March 8 – Adolfo Bioy Casares, Argentine author (born 1914)
• March 13
  • Lee Falk, American cartoonist, writer, theater director, and producer (born 1911)
  • Garson Kanin, American playwright and screenwriter (born 1912)
• March 28 – Jim Turner, American editor (born 1945)
• April 13 – Knut Hauge, Norwegian novelist, dramatist and children's writer (born 1911)
• May 8 – Soeman Hs, Indonesian novelist (born 1904)
• May 10 – Shel Silverstein, American children's poet (born 1930)
• May 27 – Alice Adams, short story writer and novelist (born 1926)
• June 14 – J. F. Powers, American writer (born 1917)
• July 2 – Mario Puzo, American writer (born 1920)
• July 14 – Maria Banuș, Romanian poet and translator (born 1914)
• September 25 – Marion Zimmer Bradley, American writer (born 1930)
• October 3 – Heinz G. Konsalik, German novelist (born 1921)
• October 19

  • Penelope Mortimer, Welsh-born English novelist and biographer (born 1918)

  • Nathalie Sarraute, Russian-born French writer and lawyer (born 1900)

  • E. J. Scovell, English poet (born 1907)

• November 11 – Jacobo Timerman, Soviet-born Argentinian journalist and publisher (born 1923)
• November 18 – Paul Bowles, American novelist (born 1910)
• December 2 – Matt Cohen, Canadian novelist (born 1942)
• December 8 – Rupert Hart-Davis, English editor and publisher (born 1907)
• December 12 – Joseph Heller, American novelist (born 1923)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Günter Grass
• Camões Prize: Sophia de Mello Breyner

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.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Michael Poole, Romancing Mary Jane

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 (first award): 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
• National Book Award for Fiction: to Waiting by Ha Jin
• National Book Critics Circle Award: to Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
• Nebula Award: Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Louis Sachar, Holes
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to The Hours by Michael Cunningham
• 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
• Whiting Awards: :Fiction: Ehud Havazelet, Ben Marcus, Yxta Maya Murray, ZZ Packer :Nonfiction: Gordon Grice, Margaret Talbot :Plays: Naomi Iizuka :Poetry: Michael Haskell, Terrance Hayes, Martha Zweig

Elsewhere

• Finlandia Prize: 1999 Kristina Carlson, Maan ääreen
• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Fritz Stern
• International Dublin Literary Award: Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
• Alfaguara Prize: Manuel Vicent, Son de mar
• Premio Nadal: Gustavo Martín Zarzo, Las historias de Marta y Fernando
• Viareggio Prize: Ernesto Franco, Vite senza fine

Notes

References

References

1. Andrew Motion. (20 May 1999). "The insider's story".
2. Michael Kennedy. (June 19, 2019). "Stephen King Recalls the Accident That Almost Ended His Life 20 Years Ago Today".
3. (1999). "Scandinavian Review". American Scandinavian Foundation.
4. (2002). "The Reading Groups Book". Oxford University Press.
5. Helene Carol Weldt-Basson. (1 May 2017). "Masquerade and Social Justice in Contemporary Latin American Fiction". University of New Mexico Press.
6. Cecilia Konchar Farr. (4 November 2004). "Reading Oprah: How Oprah's Book Club Changed the Way America Reads". SUNY Press.
7. Adam Mars-Jones. (14 February 1999). "Blood is thicker than water - and twice as messy". The Guardian.
8. Hahn 2015, p. 21
9. Hahn 2015, p. 140
10. Hahn 2015, p. 252
11. "'Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging' Is on TIME's List of the 100 Best YA Books".
12. (2000). "Talking about Books: Touching the Heart: Books that Amplify Life". Language Arts.
13. Hahn 2015, pp. 264-265
14. (2011). "21st-century Gothic: Great Gothic Novels Since 2000". Scarecrow Press.
15. Hahn 2015, p. 631
16. (2004). "International Who's Who in Poetry 2005". Taylor & Francis.
17. Yvonne Ying Hsieh. (2006). "Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, ou, la philosophie de l'ouverture". Summa Publications, Inc..
18. Stojanović, Dejan. (2009). "Sunce sebe gleda". [[Open Library]].
19. Stojanović, Dejan. (2010). "Razgovori". [[Open Library]].
20. Rüf, Isabelle. (16 October 1999). "Livres: Jean-Pierre Vernant: L'Univers, les dieux, les hommes". [[Le Temps]].
21. Jenni Calder. (13 June 2019). "The Burning Glass: The Life of Naomi Mitchison". Sandstone Press Ltd.
22. Conradi, Peter J.. (2004). "Murdoch, Dame (Jean) Iris (1919–1999)". Oxford University Press.
23. Hattenstone, Simon. ''[[The Guardian]]'' (London) 1 July 2000.
24. Peter Appleborne. (25 February 1999). "William M. Bronk, 81, a Poet Of Depth and Haunting Vision".
25. Bruce Weber. (March 16, 1999). "Del Close, 64, a Comedian With a Flair for Improvisation". [[The New York Times]].
26. Pamela Beshoff, [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-john-figueroa-1079752.html "Obituary: John Figueroa"], ''[[The Independent]]'', 11 March 1999.
27. O. Classe. (2000). "Encyclopedia of Literary Translation Into English: A-L. Kiribati". Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers.
28. (19 March 1999). "Obituary: Lee Falk". The Independent.
29. "KANIN, GARSON (1912–1999), U.S. playwright and director.".
30. "Knut Hauge". Kunnskapsforlaget.
31. Michael Gray Baughan. (2013). "Shel Silverstein". Facts On File, Incorporated.
32. (July 3, 1999). "Mario Puzo, Author Who Made 'The Godfather' a World Addiction, Is Dead at 78". [[The New York Times]].
33. Adrian, Jack. (30 September 1999). "Obituary: Marion Zimmer Bradley". [[The Independent]].
34. "Deaths England and Wales 1984–2006".
35. Jefferson, Ann. (2020-07-21). "Nathalie Sarraute: A Life Between". Princeton University Press.
36. John Mole. (12 November 1999). "Obituary: E.J. Scovell".
37. (19 November 1999). "Obituary for Paul Bowles". The New York Times.
38. "SFE: Cohen, Matt".
39. Norwich, John Julius, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/73494, "Davis, Sir Rupert Charles Hart- (1907–1999)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004. Retrieved 29 November 2008
40. (December 14, 1999). "Joseph Heller, Darkly Surreal Novelist, Dies at 76". The New York Times.
41. Hahn 2015, p. 660
42. Hahn 2015, p. 658