1996 in literature

Drama

• Jeff Baron – Visiting Mr. Green
• Nick Enright – Blackrock
• Eve Ensler – The Vagina Monologues
• Jon Fosse
• Barnet (The Child)
• Nokon kjem til Ã¥ komme (Someone is going to come) (completed 1993)
• Pam Gems – Stanley
• Jenny Kemp – The Black Sequin Dress
• Ayub Khan-Din – East is East
• Martin McDonagh – The Beauty Queen of Leenane
• Mark Ravenhill – Shopping and Fucking
• Wallace Shawn – The Designated Mourner
• Joshua Sobol – Alma
• Shelagh Stephenson – The Memory of Water
• Botho Strauß – Ithaka
• Enda Walsh – Disco Pigs
• Peter Whelan – The Herbal Bed
• Roy Williams – The No Boys Cricket Club

Poetry

Non-fiction

Births

• May 29 - R. F. Kuang, American fantasy and contemporary fiction writer
• November 13 - Zeki Majed, Kurdish filmmaker and poet
• December 25 - Elvira Natali, Indonesian author and actress

Deaths

• January 5 – Lincoln Kirstein, American writer and impresario (born 1907)
• January 8 – Howard Taubman, American author and critic (born 1907)
• January 11 – Harold Walter Bailey, English linguistics scholar (born 1899)
• January 16 – Kaye Webb, English publisher and journalist (born 1914)
• January 21 – Efua Sutherland, Ghanaian dramatist, poet and children's author (born 1924)
• January 27 – Barbara Skelton, English fiction writer, memoirist and literary figure (born 1916)
• January 28
• Jerry Siegel, American cartoonist (born 1914)
• Joseph Brodsky, Russian-born poet and essayist, Nobel Prize laureate (myocardial infarction, born 1940)
• February 11
• Bob Shaw, Northern Irish science fiction writer (born 1931)
• Amelia Rosselli, Italian poet (born 1930)
• February 12 – Ryōtarō Shiba, Japanese novelist (born 1923)
• February 18 – Cathal Ó Sándair, Irish-language novelist (born 1922)
• March 3
• Marguerite Duras, French dramatist and film director (born 1914)
• Léo Malet, French crime novelist and surrealist (born 1909)
• March 15 – Wolfgang Koeppen, German novelist (born 1906)
• March 18
• Jacquetta Hawkes (née Hopkins), English writer and archeologist (born 1910)
• Odysseas Elytis, Greek writer and Nobel Prize laureate (born 1911)
• March 22
• Claude Mauriac, French novelist and journalist (born 1914)
• Ian Stephens, Canadian poet (year of birth not known)
• March 29 – Frank Daniel, Czech-born screenwriter, director, and teacher (born 1926)
• March 31 – Dario Bellezza, Italian poet and dramatist (HIV, born 1944)
• April 16 – Leila Mackinlay, British romantic novelist (born 1910)
• April 18 – Kalim Siddiqui, Pakistani-born English writer and Islamic activist (born 1931)
• April 20 – Christopher Robin Milne, English writer and bookseller (born 1920)
• April 22 – Erma Bombeck, American humorist and writer (born 1927)
• April 23 – P. L. Travers, Australian-born children's writer (born 1899)
• May 2 – Emile Habibi, Palestinian Israeli writer and politician (born 1922)
• May 8 – Larry Levis, American poet, author, and critic (born 1946)
• May 24 – Joseph Mitchell, American journalist (born 1908)
• May 26
• Ovidiu Papadima, Romanian critic and essayist (born 1909)
• Margaret Douglas-Home, English writer and musician (born 1906)
• May 31 – Timothy Leary, American psychologist and writer (born 1920)
• June 2 – Leon Garfield, English children's author (born 1921)
• June 14 – Gesualdo Bufalino, Italian novelist (born 1920)
• June 15 – Fitzroy Maclean, Scottish political writer, autobiographer and diplomat (born 1911)
• July 10 – Eno Raud, Estonian children's author (born 1928)
• July 22 – Jessica Mitford, English author, journalist and campaigner (born 1917)
• September 21 – Henri Nouwen, Dutch priest, theologian and author (born 1932)
• September 29 – Shusaku Endo (遠藤周作), Japanese novelist (born 1923)
• October 16 – Eric Malpass, English novelist (born 1910)
• October 24 – Sorley Maclean, Gaelic poet (born 1911)
• November 27 – Lili Berger, Yiddish writer, antifascist militant and literary critic (born 1916)
• December 7 – José Donoso, Chilean writer (born 1924)
• December 9 – Diana Morgan, Welsh playwright and screenwriter (born 1908)
• December 12 – Vance Packard, American journalist and social critic (born 1914)
• December 16 – Quentin Bell, English biographer and art historian (born 1910)
• December 20 – Carl Sagan, American astronomer, astrophysicist and writer (born 1934)
• December 21 – Margret Rey, American author and illustrator (born 1906)

Awards

• Nobel Prize for Literature: Wislawa Szymborska
• Camões Prize: Eduardo Lourenço

Australia

• The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Bernard Cohen, The Blindman's Hat
• C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Peter Bakowski, In the Human Night
• Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: Eric Beach, Weeping for Lost Babylon
• Mary Gilmore Prize: Jordie Albiston, Nervous Arcs
• Miles Franklin Award: Christopher Koch, Highways to a War

Canada

• Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Margaret Atwood: – Alias Grace
• See 1996 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction: George G. Blackburn, The Guns of Normandy

United Kingdom

• Booker Prize: Graham Swift, Last Orders
• Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Melvin Burgess, Junk
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Graham Swift, Last Orders, and Alice Thompson, Justine
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life
• Cholmondeley Award: Elizabeth Bartlett, Dorothy Nimmo, Peter Scupham, Iain Crichton Smith
• Eric Gregory Award: Sue Butler, Cathy Cullis, Jane Griffiths, Jane Holland, Chris Jones, Sinéad Morrissey, Kate Thomas
• Orange Prize for Fiction: Helen Dunmore, A Spell of Winter
• Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Peter Redgrove
• Whitbread Best Book Award: Seamus Heaney, The Spirit Level

United States