2001 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2001.

Events

• February 15 – The author Michael Crichton signs a new deal with HarperCollins Publishers that reportedly earns him $40 million for two books.
• April 1 – The BookCrossing scheme for leaving books for strangers to find is launched.
• April 13 – The film version of Helen Fielding's 1996 novel Bridget Jones's Diary has uncredited cameo roles as themselves for Salman Rushdie, Julian Barnes and Jeffrey Archer, at a literary party.
• July 19 – The English popular novelist and politician Jeffrey Archer, having been found guilty of perjury in a libel trial, is sentenced to imprisonment.^[1]
• September 19 – Amiri Baraka reads his poem "Somebody Blew Up America?" at a poetry festival in New Jersey, eight days after the September 11 attacks.
• November 4 – Film premiere of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, first in the commercially successful Harry Potter film series based on the novels of J. K. Rowling.
• December 10 – The live-action film version of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, directed by Peter Jackson, opens in London. Its appearance has a strong impact on readership of the trilogy.^[2]

New books

Fiction

• Niccolò Ammaniti – Io non ho paura
• Hiromu Arakawa – Fullmetal Alchemist (鋼の錬金術師, Hagane no Renkinjutsushi, manga series, begins publication)
• Tahar Ben Jelloun – Cette aveuglante absence de lumière (This Blinding Absence of Light)
• Raymond Benson – Never Dream of Dying
• Dennis Bock – The Ash Garden
• Ben Bova – The Precipice
• Geraldine Brooks – Year of Wonders
• Lois McMaster Bujold – The Curse of Chalion
• Javier Cercas – Soldiers of Salamis (Soldados de Salamina)
• Joseph Connolly – S.O.S.
• Bernard Cornwell
  • Sharpe's Trafalgar
  • Gallows Thief
• Douglas Coupland – All Families Are Psychotic
• Achmat Dangor – Bitter Fruit
• Helen Dunmore – The Siege
• Umberto Eco – Baudolino
• James Ellroy – The Cold Six Thousand
• Leif Enger – Peace Like a River
• Sebastian Faulks – On Green Dolphin Street
• Ken Follett – Jackdaws
• Leon Forrest – Meteor in the Madhouse
• Jonathan Franzen – The Corrections^[3]
• Rodrigo Fresán – Mantra
• Diana Gabaldon – The Fiery Cross
• Neil Gaiman – American Gods
• Kate Grenville – The Idea of Perfection
• John Grisham
  • A Painted House
  • Skipping Christmas
• Abdulrazak Gurnah – By the Sea
• Margaret Peterson Haddix – Among the Impostors
• Joanne Harris – Five Quarters of the Orange
• Vigdis Hjorth – Om bare (If only)
• Nick Hornby – How to Be Good
• Silas House – Clay's Quilt
• Nancy Huston – Dolce Agonia
• John Irving – The Fourth Hand
• Fleur Jaeggy – Proleterka
• P. D. James – Death in Holy Orders
• Greg Keyes
• Edge of Victory: Conquest
• Edge of Victory: Rebirth
• Stephen King
  • Black House
  • Dreamcatcher
• Christian Kracht – 1979
• Hanif Kureishi – Gabriel's Gift
• Joe R. Lansdale – Captains Outrageous
• John le Carré – The Constant Gardener
• Ursula K. Le Guin – The Birthday of the World, and Other Stories
• Pedro Lemebel – Tengo miedo torero (My Tender Matador)
• Mario Vargas Llosa – The Feast of the Goat (La fiesta del chivo)
• David Lodge – Thinks ...
• James Luceno – Cloak of Deception
• Ian McEwan – Atonement
• Andreï Makine – Music of a Life (La Musique d'une vie)
• Juliet Marillier – Child of the Prophecy
• Yann Martel – Life of Pi
• Alice Munro – Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (short stories)
• V S Naipaul – Half a Life
• R. K. Narayan – Under the Banyan Tree
• Joyce Carol Oates – Middle Age: A Romance
• Chuck Palahniuk – Choke
• Noni Power – Crawling at Night
• Terry Pratchett
  • The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
  • Thief of Time
  • The Last Hero
• Sven Regener – Herr Lehmann
• Kathy Reichs – Fatal Voyage
• Alain Robbe-Grillet – La Reprise
• Jean-Christophe Rufin – Rouge Brésil
• Salman Rushdie – Fury
• Richard Russo – Empire Falls
• W. G. Sebald – Austerlitz
• Nava Semel – And the Rat Laughed (ואת צחוק של עכברוש)
• Olga Slavnikova – Bessmertniy (The Immortal)
• Danielle Steel – Leap of Faith
• Antonio Tabucchi – It's Getting Later All the Time
• Amy Tan – The Bonesetter's Daughter
• Timothy Taylor – Stanley Park
• Anne Tyler – Back When We Were Grownups
• Jane Urquhart – The Stone Carvers
• Andrew Vachss – Pain Management
• Tim Winton – Dirt Music
• Carlos Ruiz Zafón – La sombra del viento (The Shadow of the Wind; first in El cementerio de los libros olvidados (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books) series)
• Juli Zeh – Eagles and Angels

Children and young people

• David Almond – Secret Heart
• Malorie Blackman – Noughts and Crosses (first in the Noughts and Crosses series of five books)
• Ann Brashare – The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
• Eoin Colfer – Artemis Fowl (first in the eponymous series of eight books)
• Eva Ibbotson – Journey to the River Sea
• Brian Jacques – Castaways of the Flying Dutchman
• David Klass – You Don't Know Me
• Hilary McKay – Saffy's Angel
• Patricia McKissack – Goin' Someplace Special
• Michael Morpurgo
  • More Muck and Magic
  • Out of the Ashes
  • Toro! Toro!
• Lesléa Newman – Cats, Cats, Cats!
• Linda Sue Park – A Single Shard
• Philip Reeve – Mortal Engines (November 16)
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Lemony Snicket
  • The Ersatz Elevator^[4]
  • The Vile Village^[4]
  • The Hostile Hospital^[4]
• Jacqueline Wilson – Sleepovers

Drama

• Richard Alfieri – Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks
• Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti – Behsharam (Shameless)
• Abdelkader Benali – Yasser
• Jon Fosse – Dødsvariasjonar (Death Variations)
• Neil LaBute – The Shape of Things
• Lynn Manning – Weights
• Peter Morris – The Age of Consent
• Zlatko Topčić – Time Out

Poetry

Main article: 2001 in poetry

• Anne Carson – The Beauty of the Husband

Non-fiction

• David Allen – Getting Things Done
• Tom Allen – Rolling Home^[5]
• Jan Bondeson – Buried Alive: The Terrifying History of Our Most Primal Fear
• Dionne Brand – A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging
• Edwin Bryant – The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture
• Joan Didion – Political Fictions
• Eamon Duffy – The Voices of Morebath. Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village
• Barbara Ehrenreich – Nickel and Dimed
• Koenraad Elst – The Saffron Swastika
• Mem Fox – Reading Magic
• Antonia Fraser – Marie Antoinette: The Journey
• Dorothy Gallagher – How I Came Into My Inheritance and Other True Stories
• Stephen Hawking – The Universe in a Nutshell
• Laura Hillenbrand – Seabiscuit: An American Legend
• Christopher Hitchens – The Trial of Henry Kissinger
• Gary Lachman – Turn Off Your Mind
• Lawrence Lessig – The Future of Ideas
• Normand Lester – Le Livre noir du Canada Anglais (The Black Book of English Canada)
• Steven Levy – Crypto: How the Code Rebels Beat the Government—Saving Privacy in the Digital Age
• Margaret MacMillan – Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and Its Attempt to End War
• Michael Moore – Stupid White Men
• Mumtaz Mufti – Ali Pur Ka Aeeli
• Pavel Polian – Against Their Will... A History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR
• E. Hoffmann Price – Book of the Dead
• Eric Schlosser – Fast Food Nation
• Miranda Seymour – Mary Shelley
• Andrew Solomon – The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
• Ben Thompson - Ways of Hearing
• Türkmenbaşy – Ruhnama (The Book of the Soul, first part)
• Ivan Vladislavic – The Restless Supermarket
• Frans de Waal – The Ape and the Sushi Master
• Benjamin Woolley – The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr. Dee

Deaths

• January 5 – G. E. M. Anscombe, English analytic philosopher (died 2001)
• January 8 – Catherine Storr, English children's writer (born 1913)
• January 11 – Lorna Sage, English scholar (born 1943)
• January 31 – Gordon R. Dickson, Canadian-born American science fiction writer (born 1923)^[6]
• February 7 – Anne Morrow Lindbergh, American author and aviator (born 1906)
• February 14
  • Alan Ross, Indian-born English poet and editor (born 1922)
  • Richard Laymon, American horror fiction writer (born 1947)
• March 1 – Mahmud Arif, Saudi Arabian poet (born 1909)^[7]
• March 12 – Robert Ludlum, American novelist (born 1927)
• May 11 – Douglas Adams, English writer, humorist and dramatist (born 1952)^[8]
• May 13
  • Jason Miller, American actor and playwright (born 1939)^[9]
  • R. K. Narayan, Indian novelist writing in English (born 1906)^[10]
• June 1 – Hank Ketcham, American cartoonist (born 1920)
• June 27 – Tove Jansson, Finnish children's author writing in Swedish (born 1914)^[11]
• July 3 – Mordecai Richler, Canadian author, screenwriter and essayist (born 1931)^[12]
• July 18 – James Hatfield, American author (born 1958)
• July 31 – Poul Anderson, American fantasy and sci-fi author (born 1926)^[13]
• August 6 – Jorge Amado, Brazilian writer (born 1912)^[14]
• August 20 – Fred Hoyle, English astronomer and science fiction writer (born 1915)
• November 10 – Ken Kesey, American author (born 1935)^[15]
• November 25 – David Gascoyne, English surrealist poet (born 1916)^[16]
• December 21 – Dick Schaap, American journalist and author (born 1934)^[17]
• December 14 – W. G. Sebald, German novelist and academic (born 1944)^[18]

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: V.S. Naipaul

Australia

• Miles Franklin Award: Frank Moorhouse, Dark Palace

Canada

• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Richard B. Wright – Clara Callan
• See 2001 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Taras Grescoe – Sacré Blues^[19]

France

• Prix Décembre: Chloé Delaume, Le Cri du sablier
• Prix Femina: Marie Ndiaye, Rosie Carpe
• Prix Goncourt: Jean-Christophe Rufin, Rouge Brésil
• Prix Médicis French: Edwy Plenel, Secrets de jeunesse
• Prix Médicis Non-Fiction: Le Loup mongol
• Prix Médicis International: Antonio Skarmeta, La noce du poète

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Peter Carey, True History of the Kelly Gang
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Sid Smith, Something Like a House
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes: Volume 3 – Fighting for Britain 1937–1946
• Caine Prize for African Writing: Helon Habila, "Love Poems"
• Cholmondeley Award: Ian Duhig, Paul Durcan, Kathleen Jamie, Grace Nichols
• Eric Gregory Award: Leontia Flynn, Thomas Warner, Tishani Doshi, Patrick Mackie, Kathryn Gray, Sally Read
• Griffin Poetry Prize: Anne Carson, Men in the Off Hours and Nikolai Popov and Heather McHugh, translation of Glottal Stop: 101 Poems by Paul Celan
• Hugo Award: J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Samuel Johnson Prize: Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Michael Longley
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Kate Grenville, The Idea of Perfection
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Patrick Neate, Twelve Bar Blues

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize awarded to Gabriel Gudding for A Defense of Poetry
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry, Frederick Morgan
• Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “Circus Fire, 1944”
• Bollingen Prize for Poetry, Louise Glück
• Brittingham Prize in Poetry, Robin Behn, Horizon Note
• Compton Crook Award: Syne Mitchell, Murphy's Gambit
• Frost Medal: Sonia Sanchez
• Hugo Award: J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Richard Peck, A Year Down Yonder
• National Book Award for Fiction: to The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
• National Book Critics Circle Award: to Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Philip Roth for The Human Stain
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: David Auburn, Proof
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Stephen Dunn, Different Hours
• Wallace Stevens Award: John Ashbery
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Emily Carter, Matthew Klam, Akhil Sharma, Samrat Upadhyay, John Wray

Nonfiction: Judy Blunt, Kathleen Finneran

Plays: Brighde Mullins

Poetry: Joel Brouwer, Jason Sommer

Other

• Camões Prize: Eugénio de Andrade
• Europe Theatre Prize: Lev Dodin, Michel Piccoli
• Finlandia Prize: Hannu Raittila, Canal Grande
• International Dublin Literary Award: Alistair MacLeod, No Great Mischief
• Premio Nadal: Fernando Marías, El Niño de los Coroneles
• Premio Strega: Domenico Starnone, Via Gemito
• Premio de Novela Ciudad de Torrevieja (first award): Javier Reverte, La Noche Detenida
• Premio Antón Losada Diéguez (category Creación literaria): Xurxo Borrazás, Na maleta
• SAARC Literary Award: Ganesh Narayandas Devy, Shamsur Rahman
• Viareggio Prize: Niccolò Ammaniti, Io non ho paura, Michele Ranchetti, Verbale, and Giorgio Pestelli, Canti del destino