This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 2012 .
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January 1 – Copyright restrictions on James Joyce 's major works are lifted on the first day of the year, 70 years having passed last year since his death.[1]
January 20 – British novelist Salman Rushdie cancels an appearance at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India, and four other writers leave the city after reading excerpts from The Satanic Verses , which is banned in the country .[2]
February – James Joyce 's children's story The Cats of Copenhagen is published for the first time by Ithys Press in Dublin.[3]
March – The discovery is announced of a collection of fairy tales gathered by the historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth and locked in a Regensburg archive for more than 150 years.[4]
April – While attending the London Book Fair , the exiled Chinese writer Ma Jian uses red paint to smear a cross over his face and a copy of his banned book Beijing Coma and calls Chinese publishers a "mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party", after being "manhandled" while attempting to present the book to Liu Binjie at the fair.[5]
July – Jaime García Márquez tells his students that his brother Gabriel García Márquez , the Colombian writer and recipient of the 1982 Nobel Prize for Literature , suffers from dementia , which has ended his writing career.[6] [7]
September 27 – The 50th anniversary of the publication of ecological text Silent Spring by Rachel Carson is noted.[8] [9] [10]
September 28 – Sue Limb 's parody of the Bloomsbury Group , Gloomsbury , begins to be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in the U.K.[11]
October 24 – Boekenberg ("Book mountain"), a public library in Spijkenisse , Netherlands, designed by MVRDV , is opened.
December – The discovery is announced of "The Tallow Candle ", a previously unknown story by Hans Christian Andersen found at the bottom of a box in Denmark in October.[12]
unknown date
Children and young people
Science fiction and fantasy
January 3 – Josef Škvorecký , Czech-born novelist and publisher (born 1924 )
January 7 – Ibrahim Aslan , Egyptian journalist and author (born 1935 )
January 19 – On Sarig , Israeli children's author (born 1926 )
January 23 – Maurice Meisner , American historian, author, and academic (born 1931 )
January 28 – Don Starkell , Canadian diarist and author (born 1932 )
January 29 – Damien Bona , American historian and journalist (born 1955 )
January 30 – Bill Wallace , American children's author and educator (born 1947 )
February 1 – Wisława Szymborska , Polish poet and Nobel laureate (born 1923 )[37]
February 3 – John Christopher (Samuel Youd) English science fiction novelist (born 1922 )
February 4 – Irene McKinney , American poet (born 1939 )[38]
February 4 – John Turner Sargent Sr. , American publisher (born 1924 )
February 21 – Barney Rosset , American publisher (born 1922 )
March 21 – Christine Brooke-Rose , Swiss-born English novelist and translator (born 1923 )
March 25 – Antonio Tabucchi , Italian writer (born 1943 )[39]
March 27 – Adrienne Rich , American writer (born 1929 )[40]
March 28 – John Arden , English playwright (born 1930 )[41]
April 2 – Sarah Dreher , American novelist and playwright (born 1937 )[42]
April 7 – Miss Read (Dora Jesse Shafe), English novelist (born 1913 )[43]
April 8 – Janusz K. Zawodny , Polish-American and political scientist (born 1921 )
April 17 – Leila Berg , English children's writer and activist (born 1917 )[44]
April 26 – Ardian Klosi , Albanian publicist and writer (suicide, born 1957 )[45]
May 8 – Maurice Sendak , American children's author and illustrator (born 1928 )[46]
May 12 – Walter Wink , American theologian and scholar (born 1935 )
May 15
May 26 – Leo Dillon , American children's author and illustrator (born 1933 )
June 5
June 19 – Emili Teixidor , Catalan journalist and author (born 1933 )[51]
June 23 – Marjorie Chibnall , medievalist, biographer and translator (born 1915 )
July 28 – Carol Kendall , American children's writer (born 1917 )[52]
July 30
July 31
August 2
August 4 – Henry Scholberg , American bibliographer (born 1921 )
August 6 – Robert Hughes , Australian critic and historian (born 1938 )[58]
August 11 – Heidi Holland , South African journalist and author (born 1947 )[59]
August 22 – Nina Bawden , English novelist and children's writer (born 1925 )[60]
September 6 – Horacio Vázquez-Rial , Argentine-born Spanish writer (cancer, born 1947 )[61]
September 8 – Jon Tolaas , Norwegian poet and novelist (born 1939 )[62]
September 10
September 12 – Arkadii Dragomoshchenko , Russian poet (born 1946 )[65]
September 14 – Louis Simpson , American poet (Alzheimer's disease, born 1923 )[66]
September 15 – Fred Bodsworth , Canadian writer (born 1918 )[67]
September 20
September 21 – Sven Hassel (Børge Pedersen), Danish novelist (born 1917 )[70]
September 22 – Irving Adler , American author, mathematician, and scientist (born 1913 )[71]
October 7 – Ivo Michiels (Henri Paul René Ceuppens), Belgian writer in Flemish (born 1923 )[72]
October 21 – George McGovern , American politician and writer (born 1922 )[73]
October 25 – Aude , Canadian novelist (born 1947 )[74]
October 29 – J. Bernlef , Dutch writer (born 1937 )[75]
November 2
November 19 – Boris Strugatsky , Soviet Russian writer (pneumonia, born 1925 )[78]
November 20 – Ivan Kušan , Croatian writer (born 1933 )[79]
November 22 – Jan Trefulka , Czech writer and dissident (renal failure, born 1929 )[80]
December 1 – Ahmed Taib El Alj , Moroccan playwright (born 1928 )[81]
December 4 – Vasily Belov , Russian novelist, poet and dramatist (born 1932 )[82]
December 6 – Jan Carew , Guyanese novelist, poet and dramatist (born 1920 )[83]
December 16 – Fan Vavřincová , Czech screenwriter, novelist, and author (born 1917 )[84]
December 28 – Jayne Cortez , African-American poet (born 1934 )[85]
December 31 – Jovette Marchessault , Canadian novelist and playwright (born 1938 )[86]
Mo Yan in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature
Caine Prize for African Writing : Babatunde Rotimi , "Bombay's Republic"
Camões Prize : Dalton Trevisan
Carnegie Medal for children's literature: Patrick Ness , A Monster Calls [87]
Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award : Gene Wolfe [88]
Dayne Ogilvie Prize : Main award, Amber Dawn ; honour of distinction, Mariko Tamaki .
Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction : Joshua Knelman , Hot Art [89]
European Book Prize : Rolf Bauerdick, Madonna on the moon , and Luuk van Middelaar , Europe's passage
Governor General's Awards : Multiple categories; see 2012 Governor General's Awards .
Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction : Candace Savage , A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape
International Dublin Literary Award : Jon McGregor , Even the Dogs [90]
International Prize for Arabic Fiction : Rabee Jaber , The Druze of Belgrade
Lambda Literary Awards : Multiple categories; see 2012 Lambda Literary Awards .
Man Booker Prize : Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
Miles Franklin Award : Anna Funder , All That I Am .[91] [92]
National Biography Award : The Many Worlds of R. H. Mathews: In Search of an Australian Anthropologist [93]
National Book Award for Fiction : to The Round House by Louise Erdrich
National Book Critics Circle Award : to Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Nobel Prize in Literature : Mo Yan [94]
Orange Prize for Fiction : to The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction : to The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry : John Agard
Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize : Tamas Dobozy , Siege 13
SAARC Literary Award : Fakrul Alam , Ayesha Zee Khan
Scotiabank Giller Prize : Will Ferguson , 419
Whiting Awards : Fiction: Alan Heathcock , Anthony Marra , Hanna Pylväinen ; Nonfiction: Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts ; Plays: Danai Gurira , Samuel D. Hunter , Mona Mansour , Meg Miroshnik ; Poetry: Ciaran Berry , Atsuro Riley
Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award : Nino Ricci
Hahn, Daniel (2015). The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198715542 .
"Gloomsbury" . British Comedy Guide . Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 27, 2021 .Pera, Miriam (September–October 2013). "Honoring Excellence & Leadership: 2013 ALA AWARD WINNERS". American Libraries . 44 (9–10): 25. JSTOR 24602239 . "Dora Saint" . Telegraph . London. April 11, 2012. Archived from the original on June 26, 2012. Retrieved June 7, 2012 ."Tereska Torrès" . The Telegraph . London. September 25, 2012. Archived from the original on September 1, 2018. Retrieved September 26, 2012 .Faculty of Arts, November 7, 2012, Edna Staebler Award ,Wilfrid Laurier University , Headlines (News Releases), Retrieved November16/2012