2003 in literature

Events

• February 12 – An invitation from the First Lady of the United States, Laura Bush, for some poets to attend a conference at the White House is postponed when one of them, Sam Hamill, organizes a "Poets Against the War" group for poetry readings across the United States on the same date.
• February 15 – Anti-war protests occur in London. They are later used as the setting for Ian McEwan's 2005 novel Saturday.
• March – The University of Mosul library is damaged and looted during the Iraq War, but many volumes are removed for protection by staff.
• April 14 – The Iraq National Library and Archive is burned down during the Battle of Baghdad.
• April – Nicholas Hytner succeeds Sir Trevor Nunn as artistic director of London's Royal National Theatre.
• November 7 – UNESCO places among the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity wayang kulit, a shadow puppet theatre and best known of the Indonesian wayang.

  New books

Fiction

• Peter Ackroyd – The Clerkenwell Tales
• Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – Purple Hibiscus
• Mitch Albom – The Five People You Meet in Heaven
• Monica Ali – Brick Lane
• Martin Amis – Yellow Dog
• Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake
• Paul Auster – Oracle Night
• Max Barry – Jennifer Government
• Greg Bear – Darwin's Children
• Frédéric Beigbeder – Windows on the World
• Hilari Bell – Fall of a Kingdom
• Thomas Berger – Best Friends
• Giles Blunt – The Delicate Storm
• Frank Brennan – Tampering with Asylum
• Dan Brown – The Da Vinci Code
• Angus Peter Campbell – An Oidhche Mus Do Sheol Sinn
• Lars Saabye Christensen – Maskeblomstfamilien
• Paulo Coelho – Eleven Minutes
• J. M. Coetzee – Elizabeth Costello
• Deborah Joy Corey – The Skating Pond
• Bernard Cornwell
• *Sharpe's Havoc
• *Sharpe's Christmas
• *Heretic
• Douglas Coupland – Hey Nostradamus!
• Robert Crais – The Last Detective
• Julie E. Czerneda – Space, Inc.
• Jeffery Deaver – Twisted
• Don DeLillo – Cosmopolis
• Kate DiCamillo – The Tale of Despereaux
• Cory Doctorow
• *A Place So Foreign and Eight More
• *Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom
• Gerard Donovan – Schopenhauer's Telescope
• Fernanda Eberstadt – The Furies
• Rodrigo Fresán – Jardines de Kensington
• Cornelia Funke – Inkheart
• Anna Gavalda – I Wish Someone Were Waiting for Me Somewhere
• William Gibson – Pattern Recognition
• Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen – Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War
• Jean-Christophe Grangé – L'Empire des loups
• John Grisham – The King of Torts
• Margaret Peterson Haddix – Among the Barons
• Mark Haddon – The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• Pete Hamill – Forever
• Joanne Harris – Holy Fools
• Shirley Hazzard – The Great Fire
• Victor Heck – The Asylum
• *Vol 2 – The Violent Ward
• *Vol 3 – The Quiet Ward
• Jennifer Haigh – Mrs. Kimble
• Zoë Heller – Notes on a Scandal
• Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner
• Michel Houellebecq – Lanzarote
• Evan Hunter – The Frumious Bandersnatch
• Alan Judd – The Kaiser's Last Kiss
• N. M. Kelby – Theater of the Stars: A Novel of Physics and Memory
• Thomas Keneally – The Tyrant's Novel
• Greg Keyes – The Final Prophecy
• Stephen King – Wolves of the Calla
• Dean R. Koontz – The Face
• Dean R. Koontz – Odd Thomas
• Jhumpa Lahiri – The Namesake
• Dennis Lehane – Shutter Island
• Jonathan Lethem – The Fortress of Solitude
• James Luceno – The Unifying Force
• Steve Martini – The Arraignment
• Magnus Mills – The Scheme for Full Employment
• Paul Murray – An Evening of Long Goodbyes
• Julie Myerson – Something Might Happen
• Andrew Neiderman – The Baby Squad
• Audrey Niffenegger – The Time Traveler's Wife
• Garth Nix – Mister Monday
• Chuck Palahniuk – Diary
• Christopher Paolini – Eragon
• Carolyn Parkhurst – The Dogs of Babel
• Per Petterson – Out Stealing Horses
• DBC Pierre – Vernon God Little
• Terry Pratchett
• *Monstrous Regiment
• *The Wee Free Men
• Jean Raspail – Les Royaumes de Borée
• Matthew Reilly – Scarecrow
• Nina Revoyr – Southland
• Tom Robbins – Villa Incognito
• J. Jill Robinson – Residual Desire
• Nick Sagan – Idlewild
• Matthew Sharpe – The Sleeping Father
• Wilbur Smith – Blue Horizon
• Olen Steinhauer – The Bridge of Sighs
• Neal Stephenson – Quicksilver
• Matthew Stover – Shatterpoint
• Jonathan Stroud – The Amulet of Samarkand
• Anthony Swofford – Jarhead
• Miguel Sousa Tavares – Equador
• Adam Thirlwell – Politics
• Akira Toriyama – Toccio the Angel
• Sergio Troncoso – The Nature of Truth
• Andrew Vachss – The Getaway Man
• Mario Vargas Llosa – The Way to Paradise
• Jo Walton – Tooth and Claw
• Irvine Welsh – Porno
• Tobias Wolff – Old School
• Roger Zelazny – ''Manna from Heaven''

  Children and young people

• David Almond – The Fire-Eaters
• Atsuko Asano – No. 6
• Cressida Cowell – How to Train Your Dragon
• Madonna - The English Roses
• Elizabeth Laird – The Garbage King
• Jim Murphy – An American Plague: the true and terrifying story of the yellow fever epidemic of 1793
• Jenny Nimmo – Charlie Bone and the Time Twister
• Tyne O'Connell – Pulling Princes
• Philip Reeve – Predator's Gold
• J. K. Rowling – Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
• Lemony Snicket – The Slippery Slope
• Dugald Steer – Dragonology: The Complete Book of Dragons
• Mo Willems - Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
• Ann Turnbull – No Shame, No Fear
• Kay Winters – Voices of Ancient Egypt
• Yang Hongying – Four Troublemakers
• Peter H. Reynolds - ''The Dot''

  Drama

• Jordi Galceran – El mètode Grönholm
• Richard Greenberg – The Violet Hour
• David Hare – The Permanent Way
• Kwame Kwei-Armah – Elmina's Kitchen
• Lynn Nottage – Intimate Apparel
• Mark O'Rowe – Crestfall
• Abhi Subedi – ''Agniko Katha''

  Poetry

• Lavinia Greenlaw – Minsk
• Pope John Paul II – Roman Triptych. Meditations
• Dean Kalimniou – ''Kipos Esokleistos''

  Non–fiction

• Banglapedia – National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh
• Neal Bascomb – Higher: A Historic Race to the Sky and the Making of a City
• Patricia Brown – A League Of My Own: Memoir of a Pitcher for the All-American Girls
• Andrea Curtis – Into the Blue
• Richard Dawkins – A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love
• Gerina Dunwich – Dunwich's Guide to Gemstone Sorcery
• Jerry A. Eichenberger – Your Pilot's License
• Marc Ferro – Le Livre noir du colonialisme
• John Fowles – The Journals – Volume 1
• Anna Funder – Stasiland
• Mattias Gardell – Gods of the Blood
• A. C. Grayling – What Is Good?: The Search for the Best Way to Live
• Christopher Hitchens – A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq
• Erik Larson – The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America
• Bethany McLean – The Smartest Guys in the Room
• Don Miller – Blue Like Jazz
• Michael Moore – Dude, Where's My Country?
• Azar Nafisi – Reading Lolita in Tehran
• Alanna Nash – The Colonel: The Extraordinary Story of Colonel Tom Parker and Elvis Presley
• Daniel Okrent – Great Fortune: The Epic of Rockefeller Center
• Chuck Palahniuk – Fugitives and Refugees: A Walk in Portland, Oregon
• Rudy Ruiz – ¡ADELANTE!: una guía personal del éxito para usted y su familia
• Jane Smiley – Charles Dickens
• Clark Ashton Smith – Selected Letters of Clark Ashton Smith
• David Starkey – Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII
• Lynne McTaggart – The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe
• Amy Tan – The Opposite of Fate: A Book of Musings
• Lynne Truss – Eats, Shoots & Leaves
• Penny Wolfson – ''Moonrise''

  Films

• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

  Deaths

• January 5 – Jean Kerr, American author and playwright
• January 21 – Paul Haines, American-born Canadian poet and songwriter
• February 16 – Aleksandar Tišma, Serbian novelist
• February 26 – Quentin Keynes, English explorer, writer and filmmaker
• March 11 – Brian Cleeve, English-born Irish writer and broadcaster
• March 12 – Howard Fast, American novelist
• March 14 – Lucian Boz, Romanian and Australian literary critic
• April 3 – Michael Kelly, American journalist
• April 7 – Cecile de Brunhoff, French children's writer
• June 21
• *George Axelrod, American dramatist and screenwriter
• *Leon Uris, American novelist
• July 6 – Kathleen Raine, English poet, scholar, and translator
• July 10 – Winston Graham, English novelist
• July 14 – Éva Janikovszky, Hungarian novelist and children's writer
• July 15 – Roberto Bolaño, Chilean-born fiction writer
• July 16 – Carol Shields, American-born Canadian novelist
• September 3 – Alan Dugan, American poet
• September 12 – Profira Sadoveanu, Romanian journalist, memoirist, biographer, editor and translator
• September 24 – Derek Prince, English biblical scholar, author and radio presenter
• September 25 – Edward Said, Palestinian-American literary critic
• November 9 – Alan Davidson, Northern Irish historian and food writer
• December 3 – Sita Ram Goel, Indian historian, publisher and author
• December 11 – Ahmadou Kourouma, Ivorian writer
• December 12 – Fadwa Toukan, Palestinian poet