The year 2004 in literature involved some significant literary events and new works.
Events
- January - Poet Jang Jin-sung, in trouble with the North Korean authorities, defects to South Korea.
- February 16 - Edwin Morgan becomes Scotland's first ever official national poet, The Scots Makar, appointed by the Scottish Parliament.
- May 23 - Seattle Central Library, designed by Rem Koolhaas, is opened to the public.
- June 1 - Sasebo slashing: Controversy briefly surrounds Koushun Takami's Battle Royale, when an 11-year-old fan of the story murders her classmate, 12-year-old Satomi Mitarai, in a way that mimics a scene from the story, in Sasebo, Nagasaki.
- October 14 - Edinburgh becomes UNESCO's first City of Literature.
- October 31 - Publication in Paris by Denoël of Irène Némirovsky's Suite française, two novellas (Tempête en juin and Dolce) written and set in 1940â"41 from a sequence left unfinished on the author's death in Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942.
- December 18 - The première of Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti's play Behzti ("Dishonour") at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre (England) is cancelled as a result of violent protests by members of the local Sikh community.
- date unknown Canada Reads selects Guy Vanderhaeghe's The Last Crossing to be read across the nation.
New prose fiction
- C.C. Allentini â" Dead of Winter
- Germano Almeida - O mar na Lajinha
- R. Scott Bakker - The Darkness That Comes Before
- Blue Balliett - Chasing Vermeer
- Iain M. Banks - The Algebraist
- Steven Barnes - The Cestus Deception
- Alistair Beaton - A Planet for the President
- Thomas Berger - Adventures of the Artificial Woman
- Louis de Bernières - Birds Without Wings
- Roberto Bolaño - 2666
- T. C. Boyle - The Inner Circle
- Gennifer Choldenko - Al Capone Does My Shirts
- Stephen Clarke - A Year in the Merde
- Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell
- Wendy Coakley-Thompson - Back to Life
- Suzanne Collins - Gregor the Overlander
- J. J. Connelly - Layer Cake
- Afua Cooper - The Hanging of Angelique
- Bernard Cornwell - Sharpe's Escape and The Last Kingdom
- Douglas Coupland - Eleanor Rigby
- Stevie Davies - Kith & Kin
- L. Sprague de Camp, Lin Carter and Björn Nyberg - Sagas of Conan
- Cory Doctorow - Eastern Standard Tribe
- Ben Elton - Past Mortem
- Gustav Ernst - Grado. SüÃe Nacht
- Giorgio Faletti - Niente di vero tranne gli occhi
- Karen Joy Fowler - The Jane Austen Book Club
- Ge Fei - 人é¢æ¡è± (Renmian Taohua, "Peach Blossom Beauty")
- Robert Goddard - Play to the End
- Adrien Goetz - La Dormeuse de Naples
- Helon Habila - Waiting for an Angel
- Elisabeth Harvor, All Times Have Been Modern (Canada)
- Michael Helm - In the Place of Last Things
- Carl Hiaasen - Skinny Dip
- Allison Hedge Coke - Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
- Alan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty
- Jiang Rong - Wolf Totem
- Cynthia Kadohata - Kira-Kira
- Peg Kehret - Escaping the Giant Wave
- Thomas Keneally - The Tyrant's Novel
- Stephen King - The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower and The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah
- John Kiriamiti - My Life in Prison
- Karl Ove Knausgård - A Time to Every Purpose Under Heaven
- David Leavitt - The Body of Jonah Boyd
- Tanith Lee - Piratica
- David Lodge - Author, Author
- Henning Mankell - Depths
- David Michaels - Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell
- David Mitchell -Cloud Atlas
- Aka Morchiladze - Santa Esperanza
- Robert Muchamore - The Recruit (novel) and Class A (novel)
- Bharati Mukherjee - The Tree Bride
- Alice Munro - Runaway
- Garth Nix - Grim Tuesday
- Cees Nooteboom - Lost Paradise
- Daniel Olivas - Devil Talk: Stories
- Linda Sue Park - When My Name Was Keoke
- Terry Pratchett - A Hat Full of Sky and Going Postal
- Michael Reaves and Steve Perry - MedStar I: Battle Surgeons and MedStar II: Jedi Healer
- Marilynne Robinson - Gilead
- Philip Roth - The Plot Against America
- Edward Rutherfurd - Dublin: Foundation
- Nick Sagan - Edenborn
- David Sherman and Dan Cragg - Jedi Trial
- Kyle Smith - Love Monkey
- Lemony Snicket - The Grim Grotto
- David Southwell - Conspiracy Files
- Muriel Spark - The Finishing School
- Olen Steinhauer - The Confession
- Neal Stephenson - The Confusion (Vol. II of the Baroque Cycle) and The System of the World (Vol. III of the Baroque Cycle)
- Sean Stewart - Yoda: Dark Rendezvous
- Thomas Sullivan - Dust of Eden
- Michel Thaler - Le Train de Nulle Part
- Colm TóibÃn - The Master
- Karen Traviss - Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact
- Jonathan Trigell - Boy A
- Andrew Vachss - Down Here
- Vivian Vande Velde - Heir Apparent
- Bob Weltlich - Crooked Zebra
- A. N. Wilson - My Name Is Legion
- Michael Winter - The Big Why
- Carlos Ruiz Zafon - The Shadow of the Wind
- Juli Zeh - Gaming Instinct
New drama
- Alan Bennett - The History Boys
- Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti - Behzti
- Neil Brand - Stan (radio)
- Bryony Lavery - Frozen
- Brent Hartinger - Geography Club
- Louis Nowra - The Woman with Dog's Eyes
- John Patrick Shanley - Doubt
Poetry
- Seamus Heaney - Beacons of Bealtaine
Non-fiction
- Thomas P.M. Barnett - The Pentagon's New Map
- Ingmar and Ingrid Bergman and Maria von Rosen - Tre dagböcker ("Three diaries")
- T. Mike Childs - The Rocklopedia Fakebandica
- Richard A. Clarke - Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
- Anne Coleman - I'll Tell You a Secret
- Flora Fraser - Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III
- Leonie Frieda - Catherine de' Medici
- Sheila Hancock - The Two of Us: My Life with John Thaw
- Allison Hedge Coke - Rock, Ghost, Willow, Deer
- Pedro Lemebel - Adiós mariquita linda
- Predrag MiletiÄ - Biciklom do Hilandara
- Lawrence Lessig - Free Culture
- Roger Lowenstein - Origins of the Crash
- Farah Pahlavi - An Enduring Love: My Life with the Shah
- Chuck Palahniuk - Stranger Than Fiction: True Stories
- Michael Palin - Himalaya
- Sethy Regenvanu - Laef blong mi â" from village to nation: an autobiography
- Anita Roddick - Take it Personally: How globalization affects you and powerful ways to challenge it
- Miranda Seymour - The Bugatti Queen: In Search of a Motor-Racing Legend
- Owen Sheers - The Dust Diaries
- Ben Stein - Can America Survive? The Rage of the Left, The Truth, and What to Do About It
- Jon Stewart and writers of The Daily Show - America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
- Milt Thomas - Cave of a Thousand Tales
- J. Maarten Troost - The Sex Lives of Cannibals
- Mario Vargas Llosa - The Temptation of the Impossible
- Francis Wheen - How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World (aka Idiot Proof: A Short History of Modern Delusions)
- United Kingdom government - Delivering Security in a Changing World
Deaths
Januaryâ"February
- January 3 - Lillian Beckwith, writer of semi-autobiographical Hebridean novels (born 1916)
- January 4
- John Toland, author and historian (born 1912)
- Joan Aiken, adults' and children's novelist (born 1924)
- Jeff Nuttall, poet, publisher, actor, painter, sculptor, jazz trumpeter, anarchist sympathiser and social commentator (born 1933)
- January 10
- Alexandra Ripley, author of Scarlett (born 1934)
- (or January 11) Spalding Gray, actor and author (born 1942)
- January 13 - Zeno Vendler, philosopher and linguist (born 1921)
- January 14 - Jack Cady, fantasy and horror novelist (born 1932)
- January 15
- Olivia Goldsmith, novelist (born 1949) (complications from cosmetic surgery)
- Alex Barris, Canadian actor and writer (born 1922)
- January 22 - George Woodbridge, illustrator (born 1930)
- January 29
- M. M. Kaye, novelist (The Far Pavilions) (born 1908)
- Janet Frame, New Zealand novelist, poet and short story writer (born 1924)
- February 2 - Alan Bullock, historian (born 1914)
- February 4 - Hilda Hilst, Brazilian poet, playwright and novelist (born 1930)
- February 5 - Frances Partridge, diarist and last surviving member of the Bloomsbury group (born 1900)
- February 7 - Norman Thelwell, cartoonist (born 1923)
- February 8 - Julius Schwartz, comic book and pulp magazine editor (born 1915)
- February 17 - Bruce Beaver, Australian poet and novelist (born 1928)
- February 27 - Paul Sweezy, economist and founding editor of the Monthly Review (born 1910)
- February 28 - Daniel J. Boorstin, historian (born 1914)
- February 29 - Jerome Lawrence, playwright (born 1915)
Mar-August
- March 9 - Albert Mol, author, actor, and dancer (born 1917)
- March 27 - Robert Merle, French novelist (born 1908)
- March 29 - Peter Ustinov, actor, dramatist and memoirist (born 1921)
- March 30
- Dr Michael King OBE New Zealand historian, author and biographer (born 1945)
- Alistair Cooke, English-born journalist and broadcaster (born 1908)
- April 19
- Norris McWhirter, records compiler (born 1925)
- John Maynard Smith, evolutionary biologist and writer (born 1920)
- April 25 - Thom Gunn, poet (born 1929)
- April 26 - Hubert Selby, Jr., American author (born 1928)
- May 2 - Paul Guimard, French writer (born 1921)
- July 1 - Peter Barnes, playwright (born 1931)
- July 8 - Paula Danziger, young adult novelist (born 1945)
- August 8 - Farida Diouri, Moroccan novelist (born 1953)
- August 14 â" CzesÅaw MiÅosz, Polish-born writer, Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)
Septemberâ"December
- September 18 - Norman Cantor, Canadian historian (born 1929)
- September 24 - Françoise Sagan, French novelist (born 1935)
- September 28 - Mulk Raj Anand, Indian novelist in English language (born 1905)
- October - Natalya Baranskaya, Russian short-story writer (born 1908)
- October 8 â" Jacques Derida, Algerian-born French literary critic (born 1930)
- October 13 - Bernice Rubens, Welsh-born Booker-winning novelist (born 1928)
- October 16 - Vincent Brome, English biographer and novelist (born 1910)
- October 20 - Anthony Hecht, American poet (born 1923)
- November 9 - Stieg Larsson, Swedish journalist and crime novelist (born 1954) (heart attack)
- November 24 - Arthur Hailey, Canadian novelist (born 1920)
- December 2 - Mona Van Duyn, American poet (born 1921)
- December 8 - Jackson Mac Low, American poet (born 1922)
- December 12 - Phaswane Mpe, South African novelist (born 1970)
- December 18 - Anthony Sampson, British journalist and biographer (born 1926)
- December 28 - Susan Sontag, American novelist (born 1933)
Awards
- Nobel Prize for Literature: Elfriede Jelinek
- Camões Prize: Agustina Bessa-LuÃs
Australia
- The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Julienne van Loon, Road Story
- Victorian Premier's Literary Award C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Judith Beveridge, Wolf Notes
- Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Pam Brown, Dear Deliria: New & Selected Poems
- Mary Gilmore Prize: David McCooey, Blister Pack; Michael Brennan, Imageless World
- Miles Franklin Award: Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
- Victorian Premier's Literary Award Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction: Annamarie Jagose, Slow Water
Canada
- Giller Prize: Alice Munro, Runaway
- Governor General's Awards: See 2004 Governor General's Awards
- Griffin Poetry Prize: Anne Simpson, Loop and August Kleinzahler, The Strange Hours Travelers Keep
- Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Andrea Curtis, Into the Blue
United Kingdom
- Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Frank Cottrell Boyce, Millions
- Cholmondeley Award: John Agard, Ruth Padel Lawrence Sail, Eva Salzman
- Eric Gregory Award: Nick Laird, Elizabeth Manuel, Abi Curtis, Sophie Levy, Saradha Soobrayen
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Jonathan Bate, John Clare: A Biography
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: David Peace, GB84
- Man Booker Prize: Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
- Orange Prize for Fiction: Andrea Levy, Small Island
- Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Hugo Williams
- Whitbread Best Book Award: Andrea Levy, Small Island
United States
- Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Henry Taylor
- Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Aaron Smith, Blue on Blue Ground
- Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Jeremy Glazier, "Conversations with the Sidereal Messenger"
- Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: B.H. Fairchild, Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
- Brittingham Prize in Poetry: John Brehm, Sea of Faith
- Compton Crook Award: E. E. Knight, Way of the Wolf
- Frost Medal: Richard Howard
- Hugo Award for Best Novel: Lois McMaster Bujold, Paladin of Souls
- Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2004 Lambda Literary Awards.
- National Book Award for Fiction: to The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck
- National Book Critics Circle Award: to Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
- PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to The Early Stories: 1953â"1975 by John Updike
- Wallace Stevens Award: Mark Strand
Elsewhere
- Premio Nadal: Antonio Soler, El camino de los ingleses
See also
- list of years in literature
- Literature
- Poetry
- List of literary awards
- List of poetry awards
- The Best American Short Stories 2004
- 2004 in Australian literature