1998 in literature

The year 1998 in literature involved some significant events and new books.

Events

* November 18 - Alice McDermott wins the National Book Award with her novel "Charming Billy".
*Following the death of Poet Laureate Ted Hughes, there is a gap of several months before a successor is appointed.

New books

*Aaron Allston
**Iron Fist
**"Wraith Squadron"
*Hanan al-Shaykh - "I Sweep the Sun Off Rooftops"
*Martin Amis - "Heavy Water and Other Stories" (most stories previously published)
*Beryl Bainbridge - "Master Georgie"
*Iain M. Banks - "Inversions"
*Julian Barnes - "England, England"
*Greg Bear
**"Dinosaur Summer"
**"Foundation and Chaos"
*Raymond Benson - "The Facts of Death"
*Alfred Bester and Roger Zelazny - "Psychoshop"
*Robert Bloch - "Flowers from the Moon and Other Lunacies"
*Driss Chraibi - "Muhammad"
*Mary Higgins Clark - "All Through the Night"
*Tom Clancy - "Rainbow Six"
*Paulo Coelho - "Veronika Decides to Die"
*Bernard Cornwell - "Sharpe's Triumph"
*Patricia Cornwell - "Point of Origin"
*Douglas Coupland - "Girlfriend in a Coma"
*Ann C. Crispin - "Rebel Dawn"
*Michael Cunningham - "The Hours"
*Nelson DeMille - "Plum Island (novel)"
*August Derleth
**"The Final Adventures of Solar Pons"
**"In Lovecraft's Shadow"
*Allan W. Eckert - "Return to Hawk's Hill"
*Diana Gabaldon - "Hellfire"
*Neil Gaiman - "Smoke and Mirrors" (most of the contained stories previously published)
*Andrew Greeley - "A Midwinter's Tale"
*John Grisham - "The Street Lawyer"
*Ha Jin - "Waiting"
*Tomson Highway - "Kiss of the Fur Queen"
*Nick Hornby - "About a Boy"
*John Irving - "A Widow for One Year"
*K. W. Jeter
**"The Mandalorian Armor"
**"Slave Ship"
*Wayne Johnston - "The Colony of Unrequited Dreams"
*Stephen King - "Bag of Bones"
*Dean R. Koontz - "Seize the Night"
*Ian McEwan - "Amsterdam"
*Roy MacLaren - "African Exploits"
*Steve Martin - "Pure Drivel"
*Carol Matas - "Greater Than Angels"
*Toni Morrison - "Paradise"
*Alice Munro - "The Love of a Good Woman"
*Haruki Murakami - "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle"
*Tim O'Brien - "Tomcat in Love"
*Tom Perrotta - "Election"
*Terry Pratchett
**"Carpe Jugulum"
**"The Last Continent"
*David Adams Richards - "The Bay of Love and Sorrows"
*J. K. Rowling - "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets"
*Louis Sachar - "Holes"
*Michael Slade - "Shrink" aka "Primal Scream"
*Michael Stackpole - "I, Jedi"
*Danielle Steel
**"The Klone and I"
**"The Long Road Home"
**"Mirror Image"
*Thomas Sullivan - "The Martyring"
*Andrew Vachss - "Safe House"
*Connie Willis - "To Say Nothing of the Dog"
*A. N. Wilson - "Dream Children"
*Tom Wolfe - "A Man in Full"
*Timothy Zahn - "Vision of the Future"

New drama

*Edward Albee - "The Play About the Baby"
*Michael Frayn - "Copenhagen"

Non-fiction

*Tariq Ali - "The Book of Saladin"
*Peter Cannon (editor) - "Lovecraft Remembered"
*Esther Delisle - "" (Essais sur l'imprégnation fasciste au Québec)
*Gerina Dunwich - "Wicca A to Z"
*Amanda Foreman - "Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire"
*John Fowles - "Wormholes - Essays and Occasional Writings"
*Alan I. Marcus - "" -
*Jules Witcover, David Halberstam - ""

Births

*

Deaths

*January 2 - Frank Muir, comedy writer
*January 11 - John Wells, satirical writer
*January 23 - John Forbes, Australian poet
*January 27 - Geoffrey Trease, historical novelist
* February 7 - Lawrence Sanders, author
*February 17 - Ernst Jünger, novelist and war memoirist
*March 15 - Dr Benjamin Spock, childcare expert
*April 11 - Francis Durbridge, playwright
*April 19 - Octavio Paz, winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Literature
* April 27 - Pauline Réage, author
*April 27 - Carlos Castaneda, author
*May 9 - Nat Perrin, comedy writer
* June 10 - Hammond Innes, novelist
* June 11 - Dame Catherine Cookson, bestselling novelist
*July 1 - Martin Seymour-Smith, biographer
*July 5 - Johnny Speight, comedy writer
* July 14 - Miroslav Holub, Czech poet
*July 23 - John Hopkins, film and television writer
*September 28 - Eric Malling, journalist
*October 22 - Eric Ambler, novelist
*October 28 - Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate of Great Britain
*November 8 - Rumer Godden, novelist
*"date unknown" - Ian Wallace, science fiction author

Awards

* Nobel Prize for Literature: José Saramago

Australia

* The Australian/Vogel Literary Award: Jennifer Kremmer, "Pegasus in the Suburbs"
* C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry: Coral Hull, "Broken Land"
* Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry: No awards were presented this year
* Mary Gilmore Prize: Emma Lew "The Wild Reply"

Canada

* Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award: Talya Rubin
* See 1998 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
* Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Alice Munro: "The Love of a Good Woman"

France

* Prix Décembre: Michel Houellebecq, "Les Particules élémentaires"
* Prix Goncourt: Paule Constant, " _fr. Confidence pour confidence"
* Prix Médicis French: " _fr. Le Loup mongol"
* Prix Médicis International: " _fr. The House of Sleep" - Jonathan Coe

United Kingdom

* Booker Prize: Ian McEwan - "Amsterdam"
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction: Beryl Bainbridge, "Master Georgie"
* James Tait Black Memorial Prize for biography: Peter Ackroyd, "The Life of Thomas More"
* Cholmondeley Award: Roger McGough, Robert Minhinnick, Anne Ridler, Ken Smith
* Eric Gregory Award: Mark Goodwin, Joanne Limburg, Patrick McGuinness, Kona Macphee, Esther Morgan, Christiania Whitehead, Frances Williams
* Orange Prize for Fiction: Carol Shields, "Larry's Party"
* Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry: Les Murray
* Whitbread Best Book Award: Ted Hughes, "Birthday Letters"

United States

* Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize: Shara McCallum, "The Water Between Us"
* Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry: X.J. Kennedy
* American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal for Drama: Horton Foote
* American Book Award Before Columbus Foundation: Angela Davis, "Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday," and (separately) Allison Hedge Coke, "Dog Road Woman"
* Bernard F. Connors Prize for Poetry: Sherod Santos, "Elegy for My Sister", and (separately) Neil Azevedo, "Caspar Hauser Songs"
* Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry: Frank Bidart, "Desire"
* Compton Crook Award: Katie Waitman, "The Merro Tree"
* Hugo Award for Best Novel: Joe Haldeman, "Forever Peace"
* Frost Medal: Stanley Kunitz
* Nebula Award: Joe Haldeman, "Forever Peace"
* Newbery Medal for children's literature: Karen Hesse, "Out of the Dust"
* Pulitzer Prize for Drama: Paula Vogel, "How I Learned to Drive"
* Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: Philip Roth, "American Pastoral"
* Pulitzer Prize for Poetry: Charles Wright, "Black Zodiac"
* Wallace Stevens Award: A. R. Ammons

Elsewhere

* IMPAC Dublin Literary Award: Herta Muller, "The Land of Green Plums"
*Premio Nadal: Lucía Etxebarria, "Beatriz y los cuerpos celestes"