1997 in literature

• February 20 – Allen Ginsberg makes a final public appearance at the NYU Poetry Slam. He continues to write through his final illness, his last poem being "Things I'll Not Do (Nostalgias)" written on March 30.{{Cite book |first=Allen |last=Ginsberg |title=Collected Poems 1947–1997 |pages=1160–61}}
• May 27 – Shakespeare's Globe in London, a reconstruction of the Elizabethan Globe Theatre, opens with a production of Shakespeare's Henry V.
• June 3 – The supposed climax of Max Beerbohm's 1916 short story Enoch Soames occurs at the old British Museum Reading Room in London.
• June 26 – J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, is published in London by Bloomsbury Publishing, in an edition of 500 copies.
• July 13 – The release occurs in Ireland of the film of Patrick McCabe's 1992 novel The Butcher Boy. The author plays Jimmy The Skite, the town drunk.
• September 1 – The Adventures of Captain Underpants, the first in Dav Pilkey's series of children's novels, is published by Scholastic in the United States.
• October – The online literary magazine Jacket is founded.
• November 24 – The new British Library building in London designed by Colin St John Wilson opens to readers.
• December 30 – The memoir I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is removed from the ninth-grade English curriculum in Anne Arundel County, Maryland, for portraying "white people as being horrible, nasty, stupid people".{{Cite web |publisher=CNN |title=Harry Potter, 'Huckleberry Finn' among controversial |url=http://www.cnn.com/2000/books/news/09/14/banned.books.ap/index.html |work=Banned books |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040805171342/http://www.cnn.com/2000/books/news/09/14/banned.books.ap/index.html |archive-date=2004-08-05}}

Uncertain dates

• Tom Clancy signs a deal with Pearson Custom Publishing and Penguin Putnam Inc. giving him US $50 million for the world English rights to two new books. A second agreement pays another $25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal, and a third, with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with an ABC television miniseries for $22 million.
• Janet Dailey admits to plagiarism of the novels of the fellow American bestselling romance writer Nora Roberts.{{Cite news |last=Wilson |first=Jeff |title=Romance novelist Janet Dailey apologizes for plagiarism |newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |date=1997-07-30}}{{Cite news |last=Standora |first=Leo |title=Romance Writer Janet Dailey Sued |date=1997-08-27 |newspaper=New York Daily News|url=http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1997/08/27/1997-08-27_romance_writer_janet_dailey_.html |access-date=2008-11-18|url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090801054127/http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/1997/08/27/1997-08-27_romance_writer_janet_dailey_.html |archive-date=2009-08-01}}

• Ben Aaronovitch and Kate Orman – So Vile a Sin
• Mitch Albom – Tuesdays With Morrie
• Martin Amis – Night Train
• Iain Banks – A Song of Stone
• John Banville – The Untouchable
• Hazel Barnes – The Story I Tell Myself
• Marie Bashkirtseff (died 1884) – I Am the Most Interesting Book of All (translation)
• Raymond Benson
• Tomorrow Never Dies
• Zero Minus Ten
• Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman – Vampire Science
• Roberto Bolaño – Last Evenings on Earth (Llamadas Telefonicas)
• Pascal Bruckner – Les Voleurs de beauté
• Simon Bucher-Jones – Ghost Devices
• Christopher Bulis – A Device of Death
• Tim Burton – The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories
• Candace Bushnell – Sex and the City
• Peter Carey – Jack Maggs
• Caleb Carr – The Angel of Darkness
• Agatha Christie (died 1976) – collected short stories
• The Harlequin Tea Set
• While the Light Lasts and Other Stories
• Daniel Clowes – Ghost World (graphic novel)
• Warwick Collins – Gents
• Bernard Cornwell
• Sharpe's Tiger
• Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur
• Patricia Cornwell
• Hornet's Nest
• Unnatural Exposure
• Paul Cornell – Oh No It Isn't!
• Jim Crace – Quarantine
• Robert Crais – Indigo Slam
• Ann C. Crispin
• The Hutt Gambit
• The Paradise Snare
• 'Misha Defonseca' – Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years (published as non-fiction)
• Don DeLillo – Underworld
• Anita Diamant – The Red Tent
• Terrance Dicks
• The Eight Doctors
• Mean Streets
• Fernanda Eberstadt – When the Sons of Heaven Meet the Daughters of the Earth
• Bernardine Evaristo – Lara
• Charles Frazier – Cold Mountain
• Anthony Frewin – London Blues
• Anastasia Gosteva – Дочь самурая (The Samurai's Daughter)
• John Grisham – The Partner
• Barbara Hambly – Planet of Twilight
• Allison Hedge Coke – Dog Road Woman
• Matt Jones – Beyond the Sun
• Sebastian Junger – The Perfect Storm
• Winona LaDuke – Last Standing Woman
• Joe R. Lansdale – Bad Chili
• Paul Leonard – Genocide
• Melissa Lucashenko – Steam Pigs
• Ann-Marie MacDonald – Fall on Your Knees
• Bernard MacLaverty – Grace Notes
• Ian R. MacLeod – Voyages by Starlight
• Norman Mailer – The Gospel According to the Son
• Ian McEwan – Enduring Love
• David A. McIntee – The Dark Path
• Lawrence Miles
• Down
• Mark Morris – The Bodysnatchers
• Toni Morrison – Paradise
• Jim Mortimore – Eternity Weeps
• Herta Müller – The Appointment
• Ryū Murakami (村上 龍) – In the Miso Soup (イン ザ・ミソスープ, English translation 2005)
• Courttia Newland – The Scholar
• Kate Orman – The Room with No Doors
• Hanne Ørstavik – Kjærlighet (Love)
• Lance Parkin – The Dying Days
• James Patterson – Cat and Mouse
• Cyril Pearl – Morisson of Peking
• John Peel – War of the Daleks
• Pepetela – A Gloriosa Família
• Marc Platt – Lungbarrow
• Terry Pratchett – Jingo
• Annie Proulx – "Brokeback Mountain" (short story)
• Thomas Pynchon – Mason & Dixon
• Kathy Reichs – Déjà Dead
• Nina Revoyr – The Necessary Hunger
• Justin Richards – Dragons' Wrath
• Mordecai Richler – Barney's Version
• Gareth Roberts – The Well-Mannered War
• Philip Roth – American Pastoral
• Arundhati Roy – The God of Small Things
• Don Miguel Ruiz – The Four Agreements
• Gary Russell
• Deadfall
• Instruments of Darkness
• Will Self – Great Apes
• Carol Shields – Larry's Party{{cite book|title=The Worlds of Carol Shields|publisher=University of Ottawa Press|year=2014|ISBN=9780776621869|page=113}}
• Sidney Sheldon – The Best Laid Plans
• Michael Stackpole – The Bacta War
• Danielle Steel
• The Ghost
• The Ranch
• Special Delivery
• Dave Stone
• Burning Heart
• Ship of Fools
• William Sutcliffe – Are You Experienced?
• Antonio Tabucchi – The Missing Head of Damasceno Monteiro (La testa perduta di Damasceno Monteiro)
• Kaoru Takamura – {{nihongo3|Lady Joker|レディ・ジョーカー|Redi joka}} (book publication completed)
• Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now
• Zlatko Topčić – Nightmare
• Kurt Vonnegut – Timequake
• Lulu Wang – Het Lelietheater (The Lily Theatre)
• Niall Williams – Four Letters of Love
• Connie Willis – To Say Nothing of the Dog
• Timothy Zahn – Specter of the Past
• Roger Zelazny and Jane Lindskold – Donnerjack

• Lloyd Alexander – The Iron RingHahn 2015, p. 14
• Lynne Reid Banks – Harry the Poisonous Centipede: A Story to Make You Squirm (first in the Harry the Poisonous Centipede trilogy)
• 'Asta Bowen – Wolf: A Journey Home
• Nancy Butts - The Door in the Lake
• Cao Wenxuan (曹文軒) – The Grass House (草房子)
• Sarah Ferguson – Budgie the Little Helicopter (first in an eponymous series of 5 books)
• Mem Fox – Whoever You Are
• Cornelia Funke – Dragon Rider
• Virginia Hamilton (with Barry Moser) – A Ring of Tricksters: Animal Tales from America, the West Indies, and Africa
• Mark Helprin (with Chris Van Allsburg) – The Veil of Snows
• William Mayne – Lady Muck (illustrated by Jonathan Heale)
• Eloise Jarvis McGraw – The Moorchild
• Junko Morimoto – The Two Bullies
• Barbara Nichol (with Barry Moser) – Dippers
• Mary Pope Osborne (with Ned Bittinger) – Rocking Horse Christmas
• Dav Pilkey – The Adventures of Captain UnderpantsHahn 2015, p.106 (first in the Captain Underpants series of 12 books)
• Philip Pullman – The Subtle Knife{{cite web |title=His Dark Materials |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095938401 |website=Oxford Reference |access-date=11 January 2022 |language=en }}
• Rick Riordan – Big Red Tequila
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Philosopher's StoneHahn 2015, pp. 264-265 (first book in the Harry Potter series)
• Ron Roy – The Absent Author (first in the A to Z Mysteries series of 26 books)
• Simms Taback – There was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly
• Vivian Walsh – Olive, the Other Reindeer
• Jacqueline Wilson – Girls in LoveHahn 2015, p. 631

• Jon Fosse – Nightsongs
• Lee Hall – Spoonface Steinberg (radio monologue)
• Moisés Kaufman – Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde
• Thomas Kilroy – The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde
• Conor McPherson – The Weir
• Patrick Marber – Closer
• Richard Nelson – Goodnight Children Everywhere
• Peter Whelan – The Herbal Bed

{{main article|1997 in poetry}}

• Ted Hughes – Tales from Ovid

• Dave Barry – Dave Barry's Book of Bad Songs
• Jean-Dominique Bauby – The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Le Scaphandre et le papillon)
• Cari Beauchamp – Without Lying Down: Frances Marion and the Powerful Women of Early Hollywood
• Jan Bondeson – A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities
• Bill Bryson – A Walk in the Woods
• D. K. Chakrabarti – Colonial Indology : sociopolitics of the ancient Indian past
• Iris Chang – The Rape of Nanking
• Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel
• Jenny Diski – Skating to Antarctica
• Michael Drosnin – The Bible Code
• Gerina Dunwich – A Wiccan's Guide to Prophecy and Divination
• Geoff Dyer – Out of Sheer Rage: In the Shadow of D. H. Lawrence
• Timothy Ferris – The Whole Shebang: A State-of-the-Universe(s) Report
• Benjamin Fondane (died 1944) – Le Voyageur n'a pas fini de voyager
• Stephen Fry – Moab Is My Washpot (autobiography)
• Charlotte Gray – Mrs. King
• Alan Guth – The Inflationary Universe
• Robert Hughes – American Visions: The Epic History of Art in America
• Jesse Lee Kercheval – Building Fiction
• Betty Kobayashi Issenman – Sinews of Survival
• Geneviève Lacambre – Gustave Moreau : Maître sorcier
• B. B. Lal – The Earliest civilization of South Asia: rise, maturity, and decline
• Peter Maas – Underboss
• Deborah Madison – Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone
• James McBride – The Color of Water
• Adele Morales – The Last Party: Scenes From My Life with Norman Mailer
• Penguin Random House – Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary
• E. Wayne Ross – The Social Studies Curriculum
• Ian Smith – The Great Betrayal
• Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont – Fashionable Nonsense
• Maria Todorova – Imagining the Balkans
• Larry Trask – The Penguin Guide to Punctuation
• Kevin Warwick – March of the Machines{{cite book|author=Kevin Warwick|title=March of the Machines: Why the New Race of Robots Will Rule the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RxTcAAAAMAAJ|year=1997|publisher=Century|isbn=978-0-7126-7756-1}}
• Thierry Zéphir – Khmer: The Lost Empire of Cambodia{{cite web |url=https://www.livreshebdo.fr/livres/lempire-des-rois-khmers-gallimard-9782070533947 |title=L'empire des rois khmers |date=1997 |website=livreshebdo.fr |language=fr |access-date=14 April 2022}}

• February 12 – Alexander Nikolov, Bulgarian poet
• June 22 – Aqiil Gopee, Mauritian writer and poet
• November 28 – Franz Mherryon Robles, Filipino novelist and aphorist

• January 19 – James Dickey, American poet and novelist (born 1923){{cite web|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1998/08/the-burden-of-james-dickey/377173/|title=The Burden of James Dickey|first=Peter|last=Davison|date=August 1, 1998|website=The Atlantic}}
• February 3 – Bohumil Hrabal, Czech novelist (born 1914)
• February 18 – Emily Hahn, American journalist and author (born 1905)
• March 21 - Wilbert Awdry, British Anglican reverend and author (born 1911)
• April 5 – Allen Ginsberg, American poet (liver cancer, born 1926){{Cite news |first=Wilborn |last=Hampton |title=Allen Ginsberg, Master Poet Of Beat Generation, Dies at 70 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1997/04/06/nyregion/allen-ginsberg-master-poet-of-beat-generation-dies-at-70.html |work=New York Times |date=April 6, 1997 |access-date=April 14, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311032659/http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A0CE6D7143CF935A35757C0A961958260 |archive-date=March 11, 2008 |url-status=live}}
• May 9 – Rina Lasnier, Canadian poet (born 1915)
• May 23 – Alison Adburgham, English social historian and journalist (born 1912)
• June 8 – George Turner, Australian novelist and critic (born 1916)
• June 11 – Susanna Roth, Swiss bohemist and literary translator (born 1950)
• July 26 – Joseph Henry Reason, American librarian (born 1905){{Cite book |last=Owens |first=Irene |editor=Donald G. Davis |title=Dictionary of American Library Biography: Second supplement |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=91UjM6TLRJgC&pg=PR182 |date=January 2003 |publisher=Libraries Unlimited |isbn=978-1-56308-868-1 |pages=182–186 |chapter=Reason, Joseph Henry}}
• August 2 – William S. Burroughs, American novelist (born 19142003 Penguin Modern Classics edition of Junky.
• August 16 – Gerard McLarnon, Irish actor and playwright (born 1915)
• August 27 – Johannes Edfelt, Swedish poet, translator and critic (born 1904)
• October 14 – Harold Robbins, American novelist (born 1916)
• October 16 – James A. Michener, American novelist and historian (born 1907)
• November 6 – Leon Forrest, African American novelist and essayist (cancer, born 1937)Onishi, Norimitsu. [https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/10/nyregion/leon-forrest-60-a-novelist-who-explored-black-history.html?scp=1&sq=%22leon+forrest%22&st=nyt "Leon Forrest, 60, a Novelist Who Explored Black History"], The New York Times, November 10, 1997.
• November 30 – Kathy Acker, American novelist and poet (breast cancer, born 1947)Kathy Acker and Transnationalism, ed. Polina Mackay and Kathryn Nicol (Cambridge Scholars, 2009)
• December 14 – Owen Barfield, British philosopher, author and poet (born 1898)

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Dario Fo
• Europe Theatre Prize: Robert Wilson
• Camões Prize: Pepetela

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Eva Sallis, Hiam
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Les Murray, Subhuman Redneck Poems
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Anthony Lawrence, The Viewfinder
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Morgan Yasbincek, Night Reversing
• Miles Franklin Award: David Foster, The Glade Within the Grove

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award: Rachel Rose
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Mordecai Richler, Barney's Version
• See 1997 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Anne Mullens, Timely DeathFaculty of Arts, 1997, [http://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=2529&p=11316 Edna Staebler Award] {{Webarchive |url=https://wayback.archive-it.org/all/20140606164223/https://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=2529&p=11316 |date=2014-06-06 }}, Wilfrid Laurier University, Previous winners, Anne Mullens, Retrieved 11/17/2012

• Prix Goncourt: Patrick Rambaud, La Bataille
• Prix Décembre: Lydie Salvayre, La Compagnie des spectres
• Prix Médicis International: T. Coraghessan Boyle, America
• Prix Médicis French: Les Sept Noms du peintre – Philippe Le Guillou

• Premio Miguel de Cervantes: Guillermo Cabrera Infante

• Booker Prize: Arundhati Roy, The God of Small Things
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Tim Bowler, River Boy
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Andrew Miller, Ingenious Pain
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: R. F. Foster, William Butler Yeats: A Life, Volume 1 – The Apprentice Mage 1965-1914
• Cholmondeley Award: Alison Brackenbury, Gillian Clarke, Tony Curtis, Anne Stevenson
• Eric Gregory Award: Matthew Clegg, Sarah Corbett, Polly Clark, Tim Kendall, Graham Nelson, Matthew Welton
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Anne Michaels, Fugitive Pieces
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Ted Hughes, Tales from Ovid

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Richard Blanco, City of a Hundred Fires
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Fred Chappell
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in Poetry, John Ashbery
• Compton Crook Award: Richard Garfinkle, Celestial Matters
• Hugo Award: Kim Stanley Robinson, Blue Mars
• Nebula Award: Vonda McIntyre, The Moon and the Sun
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: E. L. Konigsburg, The View from Saturday
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: no award given
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Steven Millhauser – Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Lisel Mueller: Alive Together: New and Selected Poems
• Wallace Stevens Award: Anthony Hecht
• Whiting Awards:

:Fiction: Josip Novakovich (fiction/nonfiction), Melanie Rae Thon

:Nonfiction: Jo Ann Beard, Suketu Mehta (fiction/nonfiction), Ellen Meloy

:Plays: Erik Ehn

:Poetry: Connie Deanovich, Forrest Gander, Jody Gladding, Mark Turpin

• International Dublin Literary Award: Javier Marías, A Heart So White
• Premio Nadal: Carlos Cañeque, Quién

• {{cite book |last1=Hahn |first1=Daniel |title=The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature |date=2015 |publisher=Oxford. University Press |isbn=9780198715542 |edition=2nd}}

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