Calendar

The Calendar of Literary Facts contains more than 6,500 events in literary history.

1996 Literary Facts

Patricia Cornwell publishes From Potter’s Field

Stanley L. Elkin is posthumously awarded the National Book Critics Circle Award in Fiction for Mrs. Ted Bliss

Ken Follett publishes The Third Twin

Richard Ford receives the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award in fiction for Independence Day

Dick Francis receives the Edgar Award for Best Novel for Come to Grief and is named a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master

Robert Hass receives the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry for Sun under Wood

Seamus Heaney receives the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for The Spirit Level

Stephen King publishes The Green Mile

John Lanchester receives the Whitbread Award for First Novel for The Debt to Pleasure

Jonathan Larson is posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in drama for Rent

Terry McMillan publishes How Stella Got Her Groove Back

Jack Miles receives the Pulitzer Prize for Biography/Autobiography for God: A Biography

Danielle Steel publishes The Gift

Graham Swift receives the Booker Prize for Last Orders

Wislawa Szymborska receives the Nobel Prize for Literature

Purported evidence of primitive life is found on a meteorite from Mars

A sheep named Dolly becomes the first mammal to be cloned from the cells of an adult animal

Jorie Graham receives the Pulitzer Prize in poetry for The Dream of the Unified Field

Lisel Mueller publishes Allive Together: New and Selected Poems

Helen Fielding publishes Bridget Jones’s Diary

Dorothy Livesay dies

Andre Dubus publishes Dancing after Hours: Stories

Norman MacCaig dies

Jonathan Larson dies, the day before the off-Broadway opening of his rock opera Rent

Explore: Rent, Jonathan Larson

Joseph Brodsky dies

Explore: Joseph Brodsky

Caroline Blackwood dies

Explore: Caroline Blackwood

Sinclair Ross dies

Explore: As for Me and My House, Sinclair Ross

Marguerite Duras dies

Explore: Moderato Cantabile, Marguerite Duras

Odysseus Elytis dies

Explore: Odysseus Elytis

Mary Lavin dies

Explore: Mary Lavin, Happiness, The Widow's Son

Erma Bombeck dies

George Mackay Brown dies

Explore: George Mackay Brown

Joseph Mitchell dies

Explore: Joseph Mitchell

Eugenia Price dies

Timothy Leary dies

Explore: Design for Dying, Timothy Leary

Lonne Elder III dies

Explore: Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, Lonne Elder III

George Starbuck dies

Shusaku Endo dies

Explore: Endo Shusaku

Sheldon Vanauken dies

José Donoso dies

Explore: José Donoso, The Walk

Carl Sagan dies

Explore: Carl Sagan