2012 in literature

The year 2012 involved some significant literary events and new books.

Events

• January 1 — Copyright restrictions on James Joyce's major works are lifted on the first day of the year.^[1]
• January 20 — British novelist Salman Rushdie cancels an appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India, and four other writers leave the city after reading excerpts from The Satanic Verses, which is banned in the country.^[2]
• February — James Joyce's children's story The Cats of Copenhagen is published for the first time by Ithys Press in Dublin.^[3]
• March — The discovery is announced of a collection of fairy tales gathered by historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth and locked away in a Regensburg archive for more than 150 years.^[4]
• April — While attending the London Book Fair, exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian uses red paint to smear a cross over his face and a copy of his banned book Beijing Coma and calls Chinese publishers a "mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party" after being "manhandled" while attempting to present the book to Liu Binjie at the fair.^[5]
• July — Jaime García Márquez tells his students that his brother Gabriel García Márquez, the Colombian writer and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature, suffers from dementia that has ended his writing career.^[6][7]
• September 27 — 50th anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson^[8][9]
• September 28 — Sue Limb's parody of the Bloomsbury Group, Gloomsbury, begins broadcasting on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K.
• October 24 — Boekenberg ("Book mountain") public library in Spijkenisse, Netherlands, designed by MVRDV, is opened.
• December — The discovery is announced of "The Tallow Candle", a previously unknown story by Hans Christian Andersen. It was found at the bottom of a box in Denmark in October.^[10]

Awards

Mo Yan in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature

• Camões Prize: Dalton Trevisan
• Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award: Gene Wolfe^[11]
• Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Main award, Amber Dawn; honour of distinction, Mariko Tamaki.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Joshua Knelman, Hot Art^[12]
• Governor General's Awards: Multiple categories; see 2012 Governor General's Awards.
• Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction: Candace Savage, A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape
• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Jon McGregor, Even the Dogs^[13]
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 2012 Lambda Literary Awards.
• Man Booker Prize: Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
• Miles Franklin Award: Anna Funder, All That I Am.^[14][15]
• National Book Award for Fiction: to The Round House by Louise Erdrich
• National Book Critics Circle Award: to Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Mo Yan^[16]
• Orange Prize for Fiction: to The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Tamas Dobozy, Siege 13
• Scotiabank Giller Prize: Will Ferguson, 419
• Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award: Nino Ricci

• 14 May - Martin Thomas wins the National Biography Award for his biography The Many Worlds of R. H. Mathews: In Search of an Australian Anthropologist which tells the story of a surveyor and self-taught anthropologist who became one of Australia's most significant early researchers of Aboriginal languages, culture and history.^[17]

Books

Light novels

• Kazuma Ōtorino (story), Akaringo (art) - Nanana's Buried Treasure (January 30 – ongoing)
• Tōki Yanagimi (story), Kippu (art) - Tai-Madō Gakuen 35 Shiken Shōtai (May 19 – ongoing)
• Yume Mizusawa (story), Ayumu Kasuga (art) - Ore, Twintail ni Narimasu. (June 19 – ongoing)
• Ryō Ikehata - Aru Zombie Shōjo no Sainan (1 July – ongoing)
• Akamitsu Awamura (story), Refeia (art) - Seiken Tsukai no World Break (November 15 – ongoing)
• Kibidango Project - Momo Kyun Sword
• Kota Nozomi (story), 029 (art) - Inō-Battle wa Nichijō-kei no Naka de
• Tetsuto Uesu (story), Nekosuke Ōkuma (art) - Shinmai Maō no Testament

New drama

• Ayad Akhtar - Disgraced^[21]
• Alan Bennett
  • Cocktail Sticks
  • Hymn
  • People
• James Graham - This House
• Miho Mosulishvili - My Redbreast
• Suman Mukhopadhyay - Bisarjan
• Theresa Rebeck - Dead Accounts

Poetry

See 2012 in poetry

Science fiction and fantasy

• Karl Schroeder – Ashes of Candesce (February 14)
• John Barrowman and Carole Barrowman – Hollow Earth
• Tobias Buckell – Arctic Rising (February 28)
• Tim Powers – Hide Me Among the Graves (March 13)
• Jon Courtenay Grimwood – The Outcast Blade (March 26)
• Robert J. Sawyer – Triggers (April 3)
• John Birmingham – Angels of Vengeance (April 10)
• Brian Evenson – Immobility (April 10)
• Brian Francis Slattery – Lost Everything (April 10)
• Mary Robinette Kowal – Glamour in Glass (April 10)
• Samuel R. Delany – Through the Valley of the Nest of Spiders (April 17)
• Stephen King – The Wind Through the Keyhole (April 24)
• N. K. Jemisin – The Killing Moon (May 1)
• China Miéville – Railsea (May 15)
• Daniel Abraham – The King's Blood (May 22)
• Ian C. Esslemont – Orb Sceptre Throne (May 22)
• Mira Grant – Blackout (May 22)
• Kim Stanley Robinson – 2312 (May 22)
• Douglas Hulick – Sworn in Steel (June 5)
• Paul Melko – Broken Universe (June 5)
• Alastair Reynolds – Blue Remembered Earth (June 5)
• John Scalzi – Redshirts (June 5)
• Daniel H. Wilson – Amped (June 5)
• N. K. Jemisin – The Shadowed Sun (June 12)
• David Brin – Existence (June 19)
• Terry Pratchett & Stephen Baxter – The Long Earth (June 19)
• Daniel Abraham (writing as James S.A. Corey) – Caliban's War (June 26)
• Alex Bledsoe – Wake of the Bloody Angel (July 3)
• Charles Stross – The Apocalypse Codex (July 3)
• Hannu Rajaniemi – The Fractal Prince (September 4)
• Brent Weeks – The Blinding Knife (September 11)
• Steven Erikson – Forge of Darkness (September 18)
• Joe Abercrombie – Red Country (November 20)
• Jay Lake – Calamity of So Long a Life
• Michael Moorcock – The Whispering Swarm
• Gene Wolfe – The Land Across

Deaths

• January 19 – On Sarig, 85, Israeli children's author
• January 23 – Maurice Meisner, 80, American historian, author, and academic
• January 28 – Don Starkell, 79, Canadian adventurer and author
• January 29 – Damien Bona, 56, American historian and journalist
• January 30 – Bill Wallace, 64, American children's author and educator
• February 1 – Wisława Szymborska, 88, Polish poet and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.^[22]
• February 3 – Samuel Youd (AKA John Christopher) (b. April 16, 1922), English science fiction novelist.
• February 4 – Irene McKinney, 72, American poet.^[23]
• March 21 – Christine Brooke-Rose, 89, British novelist.
• March 25 – Antonio Tabucchi, 68, Italian writer.^[24]
• March 27 – Adrienne Rich, 82, American writer.^[25]
• March 28 – John Arden, 81, English writer.^[26][27]
• April 2 – Sarah Dreher, 75, American novelist and playwright.^[28]
• April 7 – Miss Read, 98, English novelist.^[29]
• April 8 – Janusz K. Zawodny, 90, Polish-American soldier, historian, and political scientist
• April 17 – Leila Berg, 94, British children's author.^[30]
• April 26 – Ardian Klosi, 55, Albanian political analyst, publicist and writer, suicide.^[31]
• May 8 – Maurice Sendak, 83, American children's author and illustrator, known for Where the Wild Things Are.^[32]
• May 15
  • Jean Craighead George, 92, American novelist, known for My Side of the Mountain and Julie of the Wolves.^[33]
  • Carlos Fuentes, 83, Mexican novelist and essayist. .^[34]
• May 26 – Leo Dillon, American children's author and illustrator.
• June 5
  • Ray Bradbury, 91, American science-fiction and fantasy author, known for Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked this Way Comes, and The Martian Chronicles, among other works.^[35]
  • Barry Unsworth, 81, British writer of historical fiction.^[36][37]
• July 30
  • Maeve Binchy, 72, Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer, short illness.^[38][39]
  • Héctor Tizón, 82, Argentinian writer and diplomat.^[40]
• July 31 – Gore Vidal, 86, American novelist, playwright and political commentator.
• August 2
  • Amos Hakham, 91, Israeli Bible scholar, first winner of the International Bible Contest (1958).^[41]
  • Sir John Keegan, 78, British military historian and journalist.^[42]
  • Gilbert Prouteau, 95, French poet and film director.^[43]
• August 4 – Henry Scholberg, 91, American bibliographer
• August 11 – Heidi Holland, South African journalist and author, 64
• August 22 – Nina Bawden, 87, British novelist, writer of Carrie's War.^[44]
• September 6 – Horacio Vázquez-Rial, 65, Argentine-born Spanish writer, cancer.^[45]
• September 8 – Jon Tolaas, 73, Norwegian poet and novelist.^[46]
• September 10
  • Ernesto de la Peña, 84, Mexican writer.^[47]
  • Hans Joachim Störig, 97, German non-fiction author, translator and publisher.^[48]
• September 12 – Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, 66, Russian poet.^[49]
• September 14 – Louis Simpson, 89, American poet, Alzheimer's disease.^[50]
• September 15 – Fred Bodsworth, 93, Canadian writer.^[51]
• September 20
  • Robert G. Barrett, 66, Australian author (Les Norton series), cancer.^[52]
  • Tereska Torrès, 92, French writer.^[53]
• September 22 – Irving Adler, 99, American author, mathematician, and scientist.^[54]
• 7 October – Ivo Michiels, 89, Belgian writer.^[55]
• October 25 - Aude, 65, Canadian novelist
• 29 October – J. Bernlef, 75, Dutch writer.^[56]
• 2 November – János Rózsás, 86, Hungarian writer.^[57]
• 19 November – Boris Strugatsky, 79, Soviet-Russian writer, pneumonia.^[58]
• 20 November – Ivan Kušan, 80, Croatian writer.^[59]
• 22 November – Jan Trefulka, 83, Czech writer and dissident, signatory of the Charter 77, renal failure and pneumonia.^[60]
• 6 December – Jan Carew, 92, Guyanese novelist
• 28 December – Jayne Cortez, 78, African-American poet
• 31 December - Jovette Marchessault, 74, Canadian novelist and playwright

See also

• List of literary awards
• List of poetry awards
• 2012 in Australian literature

References

External links

• Literary events in 2012 at The Guardian
• Books to watch out for in autumn 2012 at The Guardian