1992 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1992.

Events

• July – The Goosebumps series of children's horror fiction, penned by R. L. Stine, is first published in the United States.
• August – An attempt is made to set fire to the National Library of Abkhazia in Sukhumi during the War in Abkhazia by Georgian forces.
• August 25 – The National and University Library of Bosnia and Herzegovina is annihilated during the Siege of Sarajevo by the Army of Republika Srpska.
• September – Michael Ondaatje's historiographic metafiction The English Patient is published in Canada. It will win The Golden Man Booker in 2018.

New books

Fiction

• Ben Aaronovitch – Transit
• Tariq Ali – Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree
• Paul Auster – Leviathan
• Iain Banks – The Crow Road
• Clive Barker – The Thief of Always
• Julian Barnes – The Porcupine
• Greg Bear – Anvil of Stars
• Thomas Berger – Meeting Evil
• Louis de Bernières – The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman
• James P. Blaylock – Lord Kelvin's Machine
• Pascal Bruckner – The Divine Child
• A. S. Byatt – Morpho Eugenia
• Roger Caron – Dreamcaper
• Andrew Cartmel – '
• Patrick Chamoiseau – Texaco
• Paulo Coelho – The Valkyries
• Michael Connelly – The Black Echo
• Hugh Cook
• The Witchlord and the Weaponmaster
• The Worshippers and the Way
• Paul Cornell – Love and War
• Bernard Cornwell
• Sharpe's Devil
• Scoundrel
• Douglas Coupland – Shampoo Planet
• Mia Couto – Sleepwalking Land (Terra Sonâmbula)
• Robert Crais – Lullaby Town
• L. Sprague de Camp and Christopher Stasheff – The Enchanter Reborn
• Clarissa Pinkola Estés – Women Who Run with the Wolves
• Elena Ferrante – Troubling Love (L'amore molesto
• Tibor Fischer – Under the Frog
• Leon Forrest – Divine Days
• John Gardner – Death Is Forever
• Neil Gaiman – ' (graphic novel; volume 4 of The Sandman series)
• Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean – Signal to Noise (graphic novel)
• Cristina García – Dreaming in Cuban
• Mark Gatiss – Nightshade
• Ann Granger – Cold in the Earth
• Alasdair Gray – Poor Things
• John Grisham – The Pelican Brief
• Hella Haasse – Heren van de thee (The Tea Lords)
• Victor Headley – Yardie
• Andrew Hunt – '
• Simon Ings – Hot Head
• P. D. James – The Children of Men
• Denis Johnson – Jesus' Son (short story collection)
• John Kessel – Meeting in Infinity
• Stephen King
• Dolores Claiborne
• Gerald's Game
• Patrick McCabe – The Butcher Boy
• Cormac McCarthy – All the Pretty Horses (book 1 of The Border Trilogy)
• Val McDermid – Dead Beat
• Ian McEwan – Black Dogs
• Terry McMillan – Waiting to Exhale
• Javier Marías – A Heart So White (Corazón tan blanco)
• Andrés L. Mateo – La Balada de Alfonsina Bairán
• Rohinton Mistry – Tales from Firozsha Baag
• Caitlin Moran – The Chronicles of Narmo
• Toni Morrison – Jazz
• Michael Ondaatje – The English Patient
• Ellis Peters – The Holy Thief
• Marc Platt – '
• Terry Pratchett
• Lords and Ladies
• Small Gods
• Anne Rice – The Tale of the Body Thief
• Mordecai Richler – Oh Canada! Oh Quebec!
• Jennifer Roberson – Lady of the Forest
• Robert Schneider – Schlafes Bruder
• Patricia Schonstein – A Time of Angels
• W. G. Sebald – The Emigrants (Die Ausgewanderten: Vier lange Erzählungen)
• Gail Sheehy – Silent Passage
• Sidney Sheldon – The Stars Shine Down
• Michael Slade – Cutthroat
• Danielle Steel
• Jewels
• Mixed Blessings
• Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash
• Adam Thorpe – Ulverton
• Sue Townsend – The Queen and I
• Rose Tremain – Sacred Country
• Barry Unsworth – Sacred Hunger
• John Updike – Memories of the Ford Administration
• Gore Vidal – '
• Vernor Vinge – A Fire Upon the Deep
• Robert James Waller – The Bridges of Madison County
• Connie Willis – Doomsday Book
• Timothy Zahn – Dark Force Rising
• Roger Zelazny and Thomas Thurston Thomas – Flare
• Juan Eduardo Zúñiga
• El último día del mundo (The last day of the world)
• Misterios de las noches y los días (Mysteries of the nights and days; short stories)

Children and young people

• Pamela Allen – Belinda
• Chris Van Allsburg – The Widow's Broom
• Gillian Cross – The Great Elephant Chase
• Garry Disher – The Bamboo Flute
• Anne Fine – Flour Babies
• Jamila Gavin – The Wheel of Surya (first in the Surya trilogy)
• Rumer Godden
• Great Grandfather's House
• Listen to the Nightingale
• Virginia Hamilton (with Jerry Pinkney) – Drylongso
• Gordon Korman – The Twinkie Squad
• William Mayne – Low Tide
• Gerald McDermott – '
• Hilary McKay – The Exiles
• Michael Morpurgo – Waiting for Anya
• Barry Moser – Polly Vaughn: A Traditional British Ballad
• Jim Murphy – The Long Road to Gettysburg
• Barbara Park – Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus (first in the Junie B. Jones series)
• Marcus Pfister – The Rainbow Fish (Der Regenbogenfisch)
• Gloria Jean Pinkney (with Jerry Pinkney) – Back Home
• Marjorie W. Sharmat (with Marc Simont) – Nate the Great and the Stolen Base
• Ulf Stark – Can You Whistle, Johanna? (Kan du vissla Johanna?)
• Christopher Tolkien (with J. R. R. Tolkien and Alan Lee) – Sauron Defeated
• Judith Vigna – Black Like Kyra, White Like Me
• Martin Waddell – Owl Babies
• Nancy Willard (with Barry Moser) – Beauty and the Beast
• Douglas Wood – Old Turtle
• Susan Meddaugh – Martha Speaks

Drama

• Herb Gardner – Conversations with My Father
• Peter Handke – Die Stunde, da wir nichts voneinander wußten (The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other)
• David Mamet – Oleanna
• Louis Nowra – Così
• Zlatko Topčić – Musa And The Goat (radio version)
• Michael Wall – Women Laughing
• Peter Whelan – The School of Night

Poetry

• Ben Okri – An African Elegy

Non-fiction

• Nelson Algren (died 1981) – America Eats (travel book, written 1930s)
• Karen Armstrong – '
• Bill Bryson – '
• Linda Colley – '
• Esther Delisle – The Traitor and the Jew (Le Traître et le Juif: Lionel Groulx, le Devoir et le délire du nationalisme d'extrême droite dans la province de Québec, 1929–1939)
• Daniel Dennett – Consciousness Explained
• Joan Didion – After Henry
• Eamon Duffy – The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. 1400 to c. 1580
• Gerina Dunwich – Secrets of Love Magick
• Christiane Éluère – '
• John Gray – Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
• Elizabeth Hay – The Only Snow in Havana
• Nick Hornby – Fever Pitch
• Charles Jennings – Up North
• Neil Lyndon – No More Sex War: The Failures of Feminism
• Andrew Morton – Diana: Her True Story
• Mark E. Neely Jr. – '
• Liza Potvin – White Lies (for My Mother)
• Léon Werth (died 1955) – 33 Jours (written 1940)
• Michael Jackson – Dancing the Dream

Anthologies

• Margaret Busby (ed.) – '

Births

• April 14 – Naoise Dolan, Irish novelist
• August 12 – Naoki Higashida, Japanese autistic author
• September 18 – Jidanun Lueangpiansamut, Thai writer
• October 5 – Rupi Kaur, Indian-born Canadian poet, illustrator, photographer, and author
• October 30 – Édouard Louis, French writer
• November 11 – Aya Mansour, Iraqi poet, writer, and journalist

Deaths

• January 4 – Alejandro Carrión, Ecuadorian poet and journalist (born 1915)
• January 9 – Bill Naughton, Irish-born English playwright and novelist (born 1910)
• January 4 – John Sparrow, English literary scholar (born 1906)
• January 14 – Irakli Abashidze, Georgian poet, literary scholar and politician (born 1909)
• January 28 – Dora Birtles, Australian novelist, poet and children's writer (born 1903)
• February 10 – Alex Haley, African-American writer (born 1921)
• February 16
• Angela Carter, English novelist (lung cancer, born 1940)
• George MacBeth, Scottish poet and novelist (motor neurone disease, born 1932)
• April 4 – Vintilă Horia, Romanian writer (born 1915)
• April 6 – Isaac Asimov, American science fiction author (born 1920)
• April 21 – Väinö Linna, Finnish novelist (born 1920)
• April 28 – Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck), American novelist (born 1918)
• May 22 – Elizabeth David, English cookery writer (born 1913)
• July 6 – Mary Q. Steele, American novelist (born 1922)
• July 22 – Reginald Bretnor, American science fiction writer (born 1911)
• July 23
• Robert Liddell, English biographer, novelist and poet (born 1908)
• Rosemary Sutcliff, English children's historical novelist (born 1902)
• August 4 – Seichō Matsumoto, Japanese mystery writer and journalist (born 1909)
• August 29 – Mary Norton, English children's writer (born 1903)
• September 5 – Fritz Leiber, American writer of fantasy and science fiction (born 1910)
• November 7 – Richard Yates, American novelist and short-story writer (emphysema, born 1926)
• November 17 – Audre Lorde, American poet, writer and feminist (born 1934)
• December 22 – Ted Willis, English TV dramatist (born 1914)
• December 25 – Monica Dickens, English novelist (born 1915)
• December 27 – Kay Boyle, American writer, educator and activist (born 1902)

Awards

• Nobel Prize in Literature: Derek Walcott
• Camões Prize: Vergílio Ferreira

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Fotini Epanomitis, The Mule's Foal
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Robert Harris, Jane, Interlinear and Other Poems
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Elizabeth Riddell, Selected Poems
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Alison Croggon, This is the Stone
• Miles Franklin Award: Tim Winton, Cloudstreet

Canada

• See 1992 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: Marie Wadden, : The Innu Struggle to Reclaim Their Homeland 

France

• Prix Goncourt: Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco
• Prix Décembre: Henri Thomas, La Chasse au trésor and Roger Grenier, Regardez la neige qui tombe
• Prix Médicis French: Michel Rio, Tlacuilo
• Prix Médicis International: Louis Begley, Une éducation polonaise

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient and Barry Unsworth, Sacred Hunger
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Anne Fine, Flour Babies
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Rose Tremain, Sacred Country
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe
• Cholmondeley Award: Allen Curnow, Donald Davie, Carol Ann Duffy, Roger Woddis
• Eric Gregory Award: Jill Dawson, Hugh Dunkerley, Christopher Greenhalgh, Marita Maddah, Stuart Paterson, Stuart Pickford
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Kathleen Raine
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Jeff Torrington, Swing Hammer Swing!
• The Sunday Express Book of the Year: Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
• Forward Prizes for Poetry (first awards): Thom Gunn, The Man with Night Sweats (collection); Simon Armitage, Kid (first collection); Jackie Kay, "Black Bottom" (single poem)

United States

• Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Hunt Hawkins, The Domestic Life
• Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: Gwendolyn Brooks
• American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Sam Shepard
• Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Louise Glück for Ararat, and Mark Strand for The Continuous Life
• Compton Crook Award: Carol Severance, Reefsong
• Frost Medal: Adrienne Rich / David Ignatow
• National Book Award for Fiction: to All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
• National Book Critics Circle Award: to Young Men and Fire by Norman Maclean
• Nebula Award: Connie Willis, Doomsday Book
• Newbery Medal for children's literature: Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Shiloh
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: to Mao II by Don DeLillo
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Jane Smiley, A Thousand Acres
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: James Tate, Selected Poems
• Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Robert Schenkkan, The Kentucky Cycle
• Whiting Awards:

Fiction: R.S. Jones, J. S. Marcus, Damien Wilkins

Nonfiction: Eva Hoffman, Katha Pollitt (poetry/nonfiction)

Plays: Suzan-Lori Parks, Keith Reddin, José Rivera

Poetry: Roger Fanning, Jane Mead

Elsewhere

• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Amos Oz
• Premio Nadal: Alejandro Gándara, Ciegas esperanzas

References