2012 in literature

This article presents lists of the literary events and publications in 2012.

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][10]
• 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.^[11]

New books

Deaths

• January 3 – Josef Škvorecký, Czech-born novelist and publisher (born 1924)
• January 19 – On Sarig, Israeli children's author (born 1926)
• January 23 – Maurice Meisner, American historian, author, and academic (born 1931)
• January 28 – Don Starkell, Canadian diarist and author (born 1932)
• January 29 – Damien Bona, American historian and journalist (born 1955)
• January 30 – Bill Wallace, American children's author and educator (born 1947)
• February 1 – Wisława Szymborska, Polish poet and Nobel laureate (born 1923)^[16]
• February 3 – John Christopher (Samuel Youd) English science fiction novelist (born 1922)
• February 4 – Irene McKinney, American poet (born 1939)^[17]
• February 4 – John Turner Sargent, Sr., American publisher (born 1924)
• March 21 – Christine Brooke-Rose, Swiss-born English novelist and translator (born 1923)
• March 25 – Antonio Tabucchi, Italian writer (born 1943)^[18]
• March 27 – Adrienne Rich, American writer (born 1929)^[19]
• March 28 – John Arden, English playwright (born 1930)^[20]
• April 2 – Sarah Dreher, American novelist and playwright (born 1937)^[21]
• April 7 – Miss Read (Dora Jesse Shafe), English novelist (born 1913)^[22]
• April 8 – Janusz K. Zawodny, Polish-American and political scientist (born 1921)
• April 17 – Leila Berg, English children's writer and activist (born 1917)^[23]
• April 26 – Ardian Klosi, Albanian publicist and writer (suicide, born 1957)^[24]
• May 8 – Maurice Sendak, American children's author and illustrator (born 1928)^[25]
• May 12 – Walter Wink, American theologian and scholar (born 1935)
• May 15
  • Jean Craighead George, American novelist (born 1919)^[26]
  • Carlos Fuentes, Mexican novelist and essayist (born 1928)^[27]
• May 26 – Leo Dillon, American children's author and illustrator (born 1933)
• June 5
  • Ray Bradbury, American science-fiction and fantasy author (born 1920)^[28]
  • Barry Unsworth, English writer of historical fiction (born 1930)^[29]
• June 23 – Marjorie Chibnall, medievalist, biographer and translator (born 1915)
• July 28 – Carol Kendall, American children's writer (born 1917)^[30]
• July 30
  • Maeve Binchy, Irish novelist, playwright and short story writer (born 1939)^[31]
  • Héctor Tizón, Argentinian writer and diplomat (born 1929)^[32]
• July 31
  • Mollie Hunter, Scottish novelist and children's writer (born 1922)
  • Gore Vidal, American novelist, playwright and political commentator (born 1925)
• August 2
  • Amos Hakham, Israeli biblical scholar (born 1921)^[33]
  • Sir John Keegan, English military historian and journalist (born 1934)^[34]
  • Gilbert Prouteau, French poet and film director (born 1917)^[35]
• August 4 – Henry Scholberg, American bibliographer (born 1921)
• August 6 – Robert Hughes, Australian critic and historian (born 1938)
• August 11 – Heidi Holland, South African journalist and author (born 1947)
• August 22 – Nina Bawden, English novelist and children's writer (born 1925)^[36]
• September 6 – Horacio Vázquez-Rial, Argentine-born Spanish writer (cancer, born 1947)^[37]
• September 8 – Jon Tolaas, Norwegian poet and novelist (born 1939)^[38]
• September 10
  • Ernesto de la Peña, Mexican writer (born 1927)^[39]
  • Hans Joachim Störig, German writer, lexicographer and translator (born 1915)^[40]
• September 12 – Arkadii Dragomoshchenko, Russian poet (born 1946)^[41]
• September 14 – Louis Simpson, American poet (Alzheimer's disease, born 1923)^[42]
• September 15 – Fred Bodsworth, Canadian writer (born 1918)^[43]
• September 20
  • Robert G. Barrett, Australian author (cancer, born 1942)^[44]
  • Tereska Torrès, French writer (born 1920)^[45]
• September 22 – Irving Adler, American author, mathematician, and scientist (born 1913)^[46]
• October 7 – Ivo Michiels (Henri Paul René Ceuppens), Belgian writer in Flemish (born 1923)^[47]
• October 21 – George McGovern, American author and politician (born 1922)
• October 25 – Aude, Canadian novelist (born 1947)
• October 29 – J. Bernlef, Dutch writer (born 1937)^[48]
• November 2 – János Rózsás, Hungarian writer (born 1926)^[49]
• November 19 – Boris Strugatsky, Soviet Russian writer (pneumonia, born 1925)^[50]
• November 20 – Ivan Kušan, Croatian writer (born 1933)^[51]
• November 22 – Jan Trefulka, Czech writer and dissident (renal failure, born 1929)^[52]
• December 6 – Jan Carew, Guyanese novelist and playwright (born 1920)
• December 28 – Jayne Cortez, African-American poet (born 1934)
• December 31 – Jovette Marchessault, Canadian novelist and playwright (born 1938)

Awards

Mo Yan in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature

• Camões Prize: Dalton Trevisan
• Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award: Gene Wolfe^[53]
• Dayne Ogilvie Prize: Main award, Amber Dawn; honour of distinction, Mariko Tamaki.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Joshua Knelman, Hot Art^[54]
• 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^[55]
• International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Rabee Jaber, The Druze of Belgrade
• 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.^[56][57]
• 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^[58]
• 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
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: John Agard
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Tamas Dobozy, Siege 13
• Scotiabank Giller Prize: Will Ferguson, 419
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: Alan Heathcock, Anthony Marra, Hanna Pylväinen

Nonfiction: Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts

Plays: Danai Gurira, Samuel D. Hunter, Mona Mansour, Meg Miroshnik

Poetry: Ciaran Berry, Atsuro Riley

• 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.^[59]

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