2020 in literature

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2020.

Events

• April 14 – Bookshops are among the first few premises permitted to reopen on relaxation of restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.
• May 26–July 10 – J. K. Rowling releases her new fairy tale The Ickabog in free online instalments during restrictions arising from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom.
• June 25 – Louisa May Alcott's unfinished "Aunt Nellie's Story" (c.1849) is first published, in The Strand Magazine.
• July 31 – 2020 Booker Prize longlisted (later shortlisted) author Tsitsi Dangarembga is arrested in Zimbabwe as part of a government crackdown ahead of anti-corruption protests.
• August – The Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel, Germany, purchases Das Große Stammbuch, an album amicorum compiled by diplomat Philipp Hainhofer, which the library's patron Augustus the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, tried but failed to acquire following Hainhofer's death in 1647.
• October 13 – A first issue first edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone sells at auction in the UK for £60,000 and a copy of Isaac Newton's The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy in the 1729 English translation (the second to sell in recent weeks) for £24,000.
• October 14 – A Shakespeare First Folio sells at auction in New York City for $9.98M (£7.6M) (50% more than the previous copy auctioned in 2001).
• November 25 – Penguin Random House agrees to acquire rival publisher Simon & Schuster from ViacomCBS for US$2.175 billion.

New books

Dates after each title indicate the first publication, unless otherwise indicated.

ISBN in first citation always refers to the first edition published. Links should point to first edition, though they may point to newer editions by the same publisher. If the publisher does not present the first edition online, a second citation is provided with a link to a newer one on the publisher's site.

OCLC may represent other ISBNs in some cases.

Fiction

Children and young people

• Raymond Antrobus – Can Bears Ski? (November 10, UK)
• Sophie Blackall – If You Come to Earth (September 15)
• Peter Brown – The Wild Robot Escapes
• Jordan Ifueko – Raybearer (August 8)
• Tae Keller – When You Trap a Tiger
• Jeff Kinney
• ' (October 27)
• Rowley Jefferson's Awesome Friendly Adventure (August 4)
• E. Lockhart – Again Again (June 2)
• J. K. Rowling – The Ickabog (November, UK, book publication)
• Trung Le Nguyen – The Magic Fish (graphic novel)
• Jacqueline Wilson – Love Frankie (August 20, UK)
• Scott Rothman (story) and Pete Oswald (art) - Attack of the Underwear Dragon (October 6, 2020)

• Craig Brown – ' (April 10, UK)
• Scott Dawson – The Lost Colony and Hatteras Island
• Emily Levesque – The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers
• Dara McAnulty – Diary of a Young Naturalist (May 21, UK)
• James Nestor – ' (May 26)
• Barack Obama - A Promised Land (November 17, US)
• Camilla Pang – Explaining Humans: What Science Can Teach Us about Life, Love and Relationships (March 12, UK)
• Jay Parini – Borges and Me: An Encounter
• Stuart Ritchie – Science Fictions: How Fraud, Bias, Negligence, and Hype Undermine the Search for Truth (July 21, UK)
• Megan Rosenbloom – Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin
• Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig – A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America
• Peter Sloterdijk – Making the Heavens Speak (Den Himmel zum Sprechen bringen) (October 26, Germany)
• Mary Trump – Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man (August 11)
• Debora MacKenzie - COVID-19: The Pandemic that Never Should Have Happened, and How to Stop the Next One (June 30)
• Joseph M. Reagle Jr. and Jackie Koerner - Wikipedia @ 20: Stories of an Incomplete Revolution
• Xiaowei Wang - Blockchain Chicken Farm

The following list is arranged alphabetically:

• Akutagawa Prize: Haneko Takayama, '
• Anisfield-Wolf Book Award: Namwali Serpell, The Old Drift
• Baillie Gifford Prize:
• Booker Prize: Douglas Stuart, Shuggie Bain
• Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year: A Dog Pissing at the Edge of a Path: Animal Metaphors in Eastern Indonesian Society by Gregory Forth.
• Caine Prize for African Writing: Irenosen Okojie, "Grace Jones"
• Camões Prize: Vítor Manuel de Aguiar e Silva
• Carnegie Medal: Anthony McGowan, Lark
• Costa Book Awards: Monique Roffey, The Mermaid of Black Conch (novel prize and overall Book of the Year)
• Danuta Gleed Literary Award: Zalika Reid-Benta, Frying Plantain
• David Cohen Prize: not awarded this year
• Desmond Elliott Prize: Derek Owusu, That Reminds Me
• Dylan Thomas Prize: Bryan Washington, Lot
• Edgar Award
• European Book Prize: Pavol Rankov, Stalo sa prvého septembra (alebo inokedy) and Kapka Kassabova, Border: a journey to the edge of Europe
• Folio Prize: Valeria Luiselli, Lost Children Archive
• Friedenspreis des Deutschen Buchhandels: Amartya Kumar Sen
• German Book Prize: Anne Weber, Annette, ein Heldinnenepos
• Goldsmiths Prize: M. John Harrison, The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again
• Gordon Burn Prize: Peter Pomerantsev, This Is Not Propaganda
• Governor General's Award for English-language fiction: Michelle Good, Five Little Indians
• Governor General's Award for French-language fiction: Sophie Létourneau, Chasse à l'homme
• Governor General's Awards, other categories: See 2020 Governor General's Awards
• Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française: Étienne de Montety, La grande épreuve
• Hugo Award for Best Novel: Arkady Martine, A Memory Called Empire
• International Booker Prize: Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, The Discomfort of Evening translated by Michele Hutchison
• International Dublin Literary Award: Anna Burns, Milkman
• International Prize for Arabic Fiction: Abdelouahab Aissaoui, The Spartan Court
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction:
• James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography:
• Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award: Edna O'Brien, Girl (Faber and Faber)
• Lambda Literary Awards: Multiple categories; see 32nd Lambda Literary Awards.
• Legion of Honour, Chevalier:
• Miguel de Cervantes Prize: Francisco Brines
• Miles Franklin Award: Tara June Winch, The Yield
• National Biography Award:
• National Book Award for Fiction: Charles Yu, Interior Chinatown
• National Book Critics Circle Award:
• Newbery Medal: Jerry Craft, New Kid
• Nike Award: Joanna Gierak-Onoszko: 27 śmierci Toby'ego Obeda
• Nobel Prize in Literature: Louise Glück
• PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction: Chloe Aridjis, Sea Monsters
• PEN Center USA Fiction Award:
• Premio Planeta de Novela:
• Premio Strega: Sandro Veronesi, Il colibrì
• Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing: David M. Glantz
• Prix Goncourt: Hervé Le Tellier, L'anomalie
• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Colson Whitehead The Nickel Boys
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Jericho Brown The Tradition
• Queen's Birthday Honours (UK)
• RBC Taylor Prize: Mark Bourrie, Bush Runner
• Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize: Gil Adamson, Ridgerunner
• Russian Booker Prize:
• SAARC Literary Award:
• Scotiabank Giller Prize: Souvankham Thammavongsa, How to Pronounce Knife
• Golden Wreath of Struga Poetry Evenings: Amir Or
• Walter Scott Prize: Christine Dwyer Hickey, The Narrow Land
• Whiting Awards:
• Drama: Will Arbery
• Fiction: Andrea Lawlor, Ling Ma, and Genevieve Sly Crane
• Nonfiction: Jaquira Díaz and Jia Tolentino
• Poetry: Aria Aber, Dianely Antigua, Jake Skeets, and Genya Turovskaya
• Women's Prize for Fiction: Maggie O'Farrell, Hamnet
• W.Y. Boyd Literary Award for Excellence in Military Fiction: Ralph Peterson, Darkness at Chancellorsville
• Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award: Durs Grünbein

See also

References